Credit belongs to Advance Indiana too for breaking this story wide open. Kudos to Gary!

First, every position in government is political. If the Secretary of State were not elected, they would be appointed by someone who was. So there is always going to be a political slant to everything. Our Judicial System has been designed to try to limit political influence as much as possible and it is still pretty political.

Second, just because someone is political, does not mean they are a threat to democracy. Bil Browning and Chris Douglas have opposite political views. If they were running for Secretary of State, I might prefer one over the other, but would not conclude that democracy has ended because the one I prefer lost. I attended a Stonewall event that the late Governor O'Bannon attended. Maybe I was wrong but I did not assume that just because he was a Democrat, and he went to a Democratic event that obviously he could not fairly govern the entire state.

Third, from what I have heard from Rokita's speech, he was not saying that the African-American community has voted wrong, but this is a block of voters that the Republican Party should be working at getting. (He does deserve the criticism over his word choice.)

You know, Dave, this might be a first politically. We agree. :)

I agree with you that the Sec of State office would be political no matter what just as the judicial process is today. And I know you'd choose me for Sec of State because of my winning smile. *grins*

But I disagree that Rokita's point was simply that Republicans should be courting the African-American vote. Instead, Rokita's version made it out to be that they were too stupid to know which side their bread was really buttered on. Kinda that whole "So what if I hit you once and broke your nose? Look at all the presents I gave you first!" Simply put, the Republican outreach to the AA community has been dismal. His remark, coming at the end of a speech castigating the community for voting Democratic, could only be taken as an insult. So, word choice? No, it's a little bigger than that.

Do I think he should lose his job? No. But he damn well outta think first next time before he spouts off shit he doesn't really understand. See Gary's piece dissecting the Republican civil right timeline as an example.

Bil,

Since I know both of you, it would be difficult so I would vote Libertarian and use the rationale that you both would do a go job so I wanted to help make sure the Libertarian Party got on the ballot.

I reread Gary's comments and I still do not see the indication that he is saying the African-American community is stupid for voting Democratic.

I do agree that Rokita seems to get a lot of history wrong and seems to omit some very important things that would cause the African-American community not to vote Republican--in large numbers. So I would agree he needs to relook at history. But at one time Republicans did do some good things and in the South, the Democrats did do some bad things so the African-American did vote Republican for awhile. So what I read into the speech (and I have heard other Republicans, even African American Republicans say) is that the African-American vote does not have to be 90-10 for the Democrats and if it is going to change then Republicans need to do something about it. (Unfortunately I think too many Republican Politicians are "too white" that it taints the whole party and will take awhile before that ratio changes very much.)

Let me put the slave/master image to our community. Slaves do not have a choice. Most LGBT people do not think they have a political choice. (and in many elections that is very true) Masters are in control. The Democratic Party can see how homophobic the Republican Party appears so they assume we have no choice but to be beholding to them. So instead of giving us equal rights, they make us a part of their organization and remind us how bad the Republicans are. So even though we do not have equality at least we are not being beat by the Republicans.

Before I get crucified, I want to say politics and leadership involve a whole lot more and reality is not this simplistic. Also our community is not very monolithic on anything. But I do think there is some of this in the bigger political picture.

A similar idea is expressed by fundamentalist Christians about the Republican Party. There is no way they would vote Democratic. They feel like they brought the Republicans to power and now the Republicans are not always selecting their candidates. They feel somewhat trapped.

He will be speaking at the Washington Township GOP meeting this month at their Lincoln dinner so it will be interesting to see what he says.

I'm not saying that he should lose his job b/c of his comments there. I'm just saying that if you look at his history and the comments he made there, you'll see a pattern of someone who really doesn't like democracy. His comments, with the absolute paranoia about how liberals control the media and everything doesn't assure me that he can make impartial decisions about how elections are run. Add to that the religious sentiment expressed in "Republicans under God" shows that he actually thinks that Republicans are doing God's work. Which will triumph in his office, God's law or man's law?

You add to that the fact that he led the charge for the most stringent anti-voter fraud law in the country for Indiana, which will disenfranschise more people than it has prevented voter fraud (see the Indy Star link above). And guess what? The people disenfranchised will be from safe Democratic constituencies, of course.

Look around the country, this problem's a lot bigger than Indiana. From the most famous instance of Florida GOP sec. of state Katherine Harris validating elections results for GWB one week before 20K votes were found, to the Wisconsin GOP sec of state not issuing enough paper ballots in Milwaukee county, the county in that state with the largest African American community, to the terrible lines that we saw in Ohio in Black neighborhoods that were there till the wee hours of the morning (I wonder how many people just said fuck it and went home?), to a Warren County, OH, GOP election official who claimed that there was enough of a possible terror threat to prevent anyone from the media from watching the votes counted.

So, no, they shouldn't be partisan. I know that on some level everyone's political, but is Todd Rokita the most fair and balanced Hoosier that we can find?

Seriously, someone who thinks that his political ideology is more important than democracy should simply not be in charge of elections. We wouldn't accept it in a third-world country, and we shouldn't accept it for our own.

I posted this one another site a couple of days ago, but here goes:

Todd spoke almost the exact same words a year or so ago at a northern Indiana GOP event. A friend of mine was there. My friend said there had been several applause lines before the comment, but after the comment was made, there was dead silence. People were stunned. Todd moved on quickly and bashed Bart Peterson's power-grab of township government as a stepping stone to the governor's chair. Seriously.

David, you're a jewel for trying, but let this idiot carry his own water. How he got through high school, let alone two advanced degrees, is beyond me. He's clearly a history revisionist. It is not his first time to rewrite history and try to make a point through gross mis-statements.

Washington Township Republican Club...that's rich. Like anyone there would chastise Todd for these ridiculuos comments. Will the invocation be delivered by Bradford or Schneider? Both paragons of intellegence and virtue.