In a debate big on accusations, Daniels squeaks by with a win

When Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, former Democratic Congresswomen Jill Long Thompson and Libertarian candidate Andy Horning met at the Jasper Arts Center for their second gubernatorial debate, the whole thing felt like a bit of deja vu.

The first issue addressed involved sales taxes. Long Thompson repeated a charge against Daniels of being a tax-raiser, in part because of a cigarette tax increase he oversaw. This is odd given that the cigarette tax went to a program to expand the health insurance coverage of low-income Hoosiers – something most Indiana Democrats supported. 

Long Thompson also made a populist – and in our opinion foolish – call to suspend the sales tax on gasoline. Suspending the state gas tax would, in fact, save most people little money, but it would slow the movement of Indiana residents toward fuel-efficient cars and public transportation.

Moving on to education, the debate got a little more interesting. Horning repeated his criticism of funding public education through property taxes.

Daniels and Long Thompson got into another fight over a scheme to privatize the lottery. Daniels said the money from such a privatization would go toward giving every Hoosier the money for two years at a community college or the equivalent elsewhere. Long Thompson suggested that Daniels was using this argument simply as an excuse for privatization.

That was generally how the debate flowed: Daniels, whether talking about preserving public land or privatizing social services, would assure the audience that Indiana was making nationally renowned progress, while Long Thompson would then criticize how he funded his programs and then paradoxically suggest not enough was being done about the problems said programs addressed.

Horning might have inadvertently summed up how the debate and the wider governor’s race is going in his closing statement. Horning made an impassioned plea to move beyond the two major parties that he claimed create divisions in order to stay in power.

Creating divisions usually works well in politics. Sometimes the Republicans do it with social issues. This time Long Thompson seems to be doing it with economy. She needs to spend less time blaming Daniels for Indiana’s problems and find her own justification for being governor.

She still hasn’t (and is running out of time). For that reason, Daniels won the debate Tuesday night.