Coats Is A Fish Out Of Water

When I first moved to Indianapolis to attend law school, Sen. Dan Coats was seeking re-election to the seat to which he had been appointed by Gov. Robert Orr against then-Secretary of State Joe Hogsett. Coats lambasted Hogsett for running for another office without serving out his full term as secretary of state. My strongest memory of that campaign was a TV spot Coats ran over and over again, which I've dubbed the "He's not one of us" spot. Looking straight into the camera, Coats warned Hoosiers, "My opponent has no wife, he has no children." In short, he doesn't share our Hoosier values Coats said. Although he didn't say it directly, the clear implication he was sending to voters was that you shouldn't vote for Hogsett because he might be gay. Coats' attacks on Hogsett worked. He won 57% of the vote at the same time Evan Bayh was handily re-elected to a second term as governor.

Six years later, Coats chickened out of a race against Evan Bayh in 1998. Coats had become the ultimate Washington insider. Prior to serving in the House of Representatives, Coats worked on the congressional staff of Dan Quayle, a politician to whom he owes his political career. When Quayle moved up to the Senate, Coats took his his old congressional seat in northeastern Indiana. When Quayle became Vice President with President George H.W. Bush, Gov. Orr appointed Coats to Quayle's senate seat at his urging. Many of Orr's staffers had urged him to appoint a young up-and-comer, Mitch Daniels, to the seat instead. Orr's desire to win an ambassadorship from the Bush administration may have given him an extra incentive to go with Quayle's choice.

After Coats left the Senate in 1998, he chose to stay in Washington. He later accepted an ambassadorship appointment to Germany from President Bush. Later, he took up the trade of so many former Members of Congress: he became a lobbyist. Hoosier Republicans have scarcely seen Coats since he retired from the Senate. By all accounts, he considered Washington his home and had planned to retire to a lovely home in North Carolina. Then came a Rasmussen poll showing Evan Bayh vulnerable for re-election and the timely intervention of Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) who leads the Senate Republican Campaign Committee to convince Coats that none of the Republican Party's current crop of candidates for that seat cut it and that he should return to Indiana to run for the seat. To the surprise of almost everyone, Coats jumped at the opportunity. We're told Coats quickly rented a home on the Indianapolis' northside to claim as a residence for voting purposes. Not to worry about the late date of rounding up enough signatures to get on the ballot, Coats will simply rely on paid workers to collect his signatures absent any grassroots support for his candidacy.

Seeing Coats greet Marion County GOP precinct committeepersons and volunteer workers at this weekend's slating convention, I sensed that Coats believes he's our savior coming to the rescue to ensure us a victory in November over Sen. Evan Bayh. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many of the younger folks remember little about him other than he had a very bad comb-over, which he has wisely lost. I sense real resentment towards Coats from many of the party faithful that he has the audacity to think that he can waltz into the state on the eve of the filing deadline for the May primary when other candidates have been out on the hustings for the better part of the past year seeking support for their candidacies. Beyond that, Coats has to be living in an imaginary world if he doesn't appreciate the resentment average Hoosiers have towards Washington insiders these days. How can you say you're part of the solution when you've been lobbying for Bank of America, Yemen and Venezuelan interests? He even had a lobbying contract with the Indian government to arrange a speech for that country's prime minister before a joint session of Congress. Gee, what does an ambassador do? Coats can argue all he wants over the characterization of his lobbying work, but in the end he cannot escape his ultimate Washington insider status.

All of Coats' potential primary opponents resent his entry into the race at this late date. Clearly, Gov. Daniels is not happy with his entry. The only people clamoring for him to run are all Washington insiders. Despite the fact that his entry has gone over like a fart in church, Coats shows no signs of retreating. And why should he? He sees four underfunded primary opponents with little name recognition. Because of Indiana's alphabetized system of placing candidates on the ballot, Coats knows his name will appear near the top in a long list of candidates (assuming Richard Behney fails to secure enough signatures). Turnout in the primary election may be very low. That gives one of the other candidates who is short on funds but has built a strong base of grassroots supporters to emerge victorious. If Coats wins the nomination, we're stuck with a race between two Washington insiders, leaving voters little in the way of choices.

Sorry, Dan, but you are not one of us. If only someone could convince him that he would be doing the party a big favor if he simply returned to his retirement home in North Carolina.