If you thought that Democrats might be a little, well, embarrassed about their new fleeing strategy, think again.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee released a new ad today that slams Gov. Mitch Daniels and Indiana GOP lawmakers. “Democrats are standing up to Daniels’s anti-middle-class agenda,” says the ad’s narrator.
“Standing up” is a nice way of characterizing leaving Indiana and fleeing to Urbana, Illinois, for four weeks and counting now.
The unfairness of the charge aside — Democrats are upset about Daniels’s voucher program (how dare low-income kids be given a chance to attend better schools!) and some provisions that would curb union status — it’s astounding that Democrats want this to be national issue. (Do they really think there’s popular support for abandoning the state you represent?)
Right now, Indiana Republicans are struggling to figure out a way to get the Democrats back without conceding so much that fleeing becomes a nationwide legislatively strategy. “The fear that House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, and Senate President Pro Tempore David Long share: If Democrats, outnumbered 60-40 in the House and 37-13 in the Senate, think they are winning this battle of wills, boycotts could become a regular legislative tactic across the nation,” reported the Indianapolis Star today.
Here is the Democratic ad:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=9iRl-1kn1qs