Hoosier lore

"A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" update:

Looks like this is a real race:

Richard Mourdock has closed within single digits of Sen. Dick Lugar in the Indiana GOP Senate primary race, according to a pair of polls commissioned by groups seeking to oust the six-term incumbent.

The political shenanigans behind the "Lugar can't vote here" decision:

Sorry, Democrats, the governor gets to pick the new secetary of state:

Former Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White was eligible to run for office, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled this morning.

Not sure this is a good crusade for Sen. Coats to be pursuing:

The Senate easily rejected Tuesday an effort by Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., to boost highway funding for Indiana and some other states while lowering it for others.

In the aftermath of  a school bus crash into a bridge that killed the driver and a 5-year-old, Michael LaRocco, the Indiana education department's director of school transportation, says he would love to require safety belts on every school bus, but the state just can't afford it:

Good thing the Supreme Court has already upheld Indiana's voter ID law -- the Justice Department is serious about challenging states who have more recently adopted the requirements. About the fight in Texas, this observer notes that neither side's claims ring completely true. Fraud surely isn't as big a probelm as Republicans claim, and disenfranchisement on the scale claimed by Democrats is preposterous. And all that aside:

Over at the Daily Beast, an account of Richard Lugar's "first tough primary camaign in his Senate career."

Point made:

Mourdock and his followers have been highlighting the fact that although Lugar votes in Indiana, he hasn’t actually lived there since 1977, when he sold his home in Indianapolis, where he’d served two terms as mayor, and bought one in the posh Washington suburb of McLean, Va.

Mitt Romney is trying to turn into a Southerner for the upcoming Albama and Mississippi primaries, "learning to say 'y'all' and 'I like grits.' " But he's struggling a tad:

He greeted voters in Jackson, Miss., last week with a hearty "Morning, y'all!" and said he started the day with "a biscuit and some cheesy grits."

This isn't exactly the most startling revelation of the year:

In fact, two-thirds of the 34 people killed in the catastrophic March 2 tornadoes in Indiana and Kentucky died in mobile homes. Such housing makes up only 14 percent of the housing in Kentucky and 6 percent in Indiana.

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