Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann kept her terms of the bargain when she tendered her resignation to Gov. Mike Pence this week, effective Wednesday, March 2. Gov. Mike Pence offered her the position as Ivy Tech's new president in consideration for her agreeing to resign quietly so he could appoint Eric Holcomb to her job. Holcomb, a Mitch Daniels crony and former naval intelligence officer, had been seeking the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen. Dan Coats.
Ellspermann, a Democrat at heart, had never felt comfortable serving with Gov. Pence and clashed with him on many issues. The quid pro quo deal for Ellspermann allowed the Republican establishment to get Holcomb out of the Senate race because of their fear that a three-man race would allow U.S. Rep. Marlin Stutzman to win the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat. Establishment Republicans back another naval intelligence officer, U.S. Rep. Todd Young, to succeed Coats. You can't beat the military/industrial complex in the Hoosier State. They own us lock, stock and barrel.
Ellsperman leaves her statewide office without prior approval of the Ivy Tech board of trustees, which has yet to interview candidates for its top job, a process that's supposed to involve a nationwide job search. Pence expects his political appointees to the board to back Ellspermann. Former Mayor Greg Ballard, who is disliked by Gov. Pence, has expressed an interest in the job he is completely unqualified to fill. Ballard taught business classes at a five-and-dime business school for a short period following his retirement from the Marines. Ellsperman, a Purdue engineering graduate with a doctoral degree, formerly served as director of the University of Southern Indiana's Center for Applied Research.
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Mr. Pence’s choice of Ellspermann was from the outset a reason to doubt the faux conservative Republican’s critical thought abilities. Pence’s elevation of the ultimate crony insider rent-a-civic-mouthpiece Eric Holcomb sealed it for those of us who appropriately comprehend Holcomb for who and what he is actually all about. We also see again what the wooden and ineffective Mike Pence is all about and that is very little of substance. Think Rick Hite.
Pence Must Go. His BFF JC should walk alongside in that departure.
All these local and state GOP insider deals moving political chits from one chess square to another, most with overpaid job positions and associated benefits the taxpayers footing the bills will never in their lifetimes be able to achieve, must end.
But the icing on the cake for me in this Advance Indiana report is the apt description of the uber-corrupt, nepotist RINO Greg Ballard as he casts about for a high paying, visible, prominent job allowing him to remain in the political loop. No doubt about it! Ballard is interested in a job “he is completely unqualified to fill”. That “Ballard taught business classes at a five-and-dime business school for a short period following his retirement from the Marines” made me laugh out loud. Standing before students at a “five-and-dime business school” explains all the financial and legal trouble Greg Ballard rained down on this city with his multiple crony, often law-breaking deals.
I do not support Ellspermann being named Ivy Tech’s new president simply because Mike Pence wants that outcome to make his disposal easier for the public to swallow, but I also would be horrified if the Ivy Tech board was so brain dead as to select numbskull Greg Ballard as the new president of a community college working hard to improve its public image as an institution of real learning.
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