U.S. Congress - Indiana's 3rd District
Incumbent: Mark Souder (R)
Challengers: Mike Montagano (D), William Larsen (L)
Indiana's 3rd district is pretty straightforward. It's biggest constituency resides in Fort Wayne.
Mark Souder was elected to the House in 1994 (originally in Indiana's 4th district, but now the 3rd after redistricting in 2002). He votes with a traditional conservative ideology. His stance on health care is appealing, and his comments on trade are relevant given the concentration of manufacturing jobs in his district. That said, his positions in the past against online gambling and the "war" on drugs are not the business of the federal government. His support of the federal government in Gonzales v. Raich shows that he is for big government as long as it's the big government that he wants.
Mike Montagano has never held elected office and has received support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. This could make the race interesting. Mike looks to be another Blue Dog, like Donnelly, as he is pro-life and pro-guns. This should play well in northeast Indiana. His website has relatively rich multimedia content, but it is thin on the issues.
That leaves us with William Larsen. Ugh. I hate to put so much importance on something so seemingly minor as the candidates website, but... geez. There is so much text it makes you dizzy. There are a few charts and graphs, but no pictures or anything remotely personal. This is politics after all. You have to be able to connect to your constituents and colleagues. Anyhow, he has a ton of information about why Social Security is broken and even some ideas on how to fix it. It would take me three years to read everything that he has on his "campaign" site, let alone his blog.
Endorsement: Montagano (reluctantly)
Prediction: hmm... toss-up... Montagano?
1 comment:
Larsen's website is just another example of how the majority of Libertarians are simply unable to "market" themselves, for whatever reason. I understand that they probably don't have a great amount of funds available to them, but c'mon...you can find someone to design you a basic, minimally attractive website. Get a friend to do it even.
Regardless of your ideological stance on political campaigning, etc., I'm sorry but if you can't make yourself and your positions appealing to your constituency you're simply never going to get anywhere. More and more, voters are turning to the internet for information on candidates and issues and I've known many potential voters (for good or bad) who've simply been turned off by a candidate's poor website
It's terribly frustrating because Mr. Larsen may very well have good ideas and positions but the average voter who's mildly interested in the Libertarian viewpoint will go to his website, take one look at the the sheer volume of text and simply leave. Voter lost. It's this kind of stuff that I think makes the "mainstream" not take Libertarians seriously.
Mr. Larsen's web site also reveals what I feel to be a major flaw found in a great number of third party candidates, regardless of political affiliation--he's simply unable to express himself in a succint, coherent way. If you aren't able to condense your thoughts (on "paper" no less, not even a speech where it's a bit more acceptable to run on, etc.) into paragraphs of reasonable length or at least into something not resembling a high school English essay, you don't belong in public office...period. Sorry...
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