So, next year, Mark Souder is going to face a primary challenge from somebody running to his right:
. . . to hear Phil Troyer tell it - it's time to lower the curtain on a supposedly conservative politician who has forgotten his roots.
Is Mark Souder, who just this week blasted a possible government takeover of the health care industry, really a liberal? Troyer, who announced his candidacy for Souder's 3rd District congressional seat, seems to think so.
And Evan Bayh will face a primary challenge from somebody running to his left:
Bloomington restaurant owner Tamyra D'Ippolito says she was hoping someone with political experience would challenge Bayh in the primary. When no one jumped in, she did.
Bayh has yet to commit to supporting a health care reform bill. Two weeks ago, the liberal Progressive Change Campaign Committee released a poll claiming 48 percent of Hoosier Democrats would be less likely to vote for Bayh in the primary if he votes against a government-run insurance option, with 52 percent less likely if he joins a Republican filibuster to kill it, a possibility Bayh has called unlikely but refused to rule out.
I don't know what else the 2010 political year will be, but it won't be boring.
And I doubt if challenging the ideological purity of Souder and Bayh will be very successful. Despite Bayh's reputation as a moderate, the liberal and conservative groups who care about such things rate him as pretty liberal (though some say he's becoming more conservative). And though I wish Souder were as much a deficit hawk as, say, Mike Pence with his zero tolerance for earmarks, it's not fair to say he's not conservative.
