Published: October 15, 2008 11:23 am            

Governor candidates get personal in final debate

Questions give insight into people as much as politics

BLOOMINGTON — Indiana’s three candidates for governor offered a glimpse behind their politics into themselves Tuesday night in their final debate before the Nov. 4 election.

Questions covered their reasons for wanting the job, the biggest influences in their lives, their vision of the role of government and how they overcame their worst setbacks.

Sometimes, the answers were intensely personal.

“I made a big mistake while I was in college and I stayed a night in jail,” Daniels said when asked about his worst setback. “The most severe price I paid was to my father.”

Daniels was arrested as a student at Princeton in 1970 along with two others after a five-month investigation. Eventually he pleaded guilty to a disorderly person charge stemming from his use of marijuana. He was fined $350 and prosecutors dismissed other charges. He said it taught him the lesson of telling the truth.

Democrat Jill Long Thompson said her family’s struggles to keep their northern Indiana farm during the 1980s made her “extremely sensitive” to the economic well-being of the state.

Libertarian Andy Horning said he was “basically an idiot” until he turned his life around at age 31 and became a different person through his religion.

Daniels, Long Thompson and Horning did get into some issues from previous debates, including the economy. Long Thompson continued to say the state was losing thousands of jobs, while Daniels said Indiana was in better shape than many states.

Indiana’s unemployment figure was 6.4 percent in August, up nearly 2 percentage points from a year earlier but lower than those of neighboring states.

Unlike many states, Daniels said, Indiana did not face a budget deficit or the prospect of tax increases.

“I thought eventually we might see a kinder, gentler you but I guess it’s not in the cards,” Daniels said to Long Thompson.

But the round-table debate at the Indiana University Auditorium was largely a series of philosophical questions asked by former television broadcaster Tom Cochrun. For example, Cochrun asked the candidates who or what had been the single biggest influence on their lives.

Daniels said besides his parents, it was Sen. Dick Lugar. Daniels served as an aide to him for several years after Lugar was elected to the Senate in 1976.

“His is a paragon of public service, the whole package of intellect, work ethic, uncompromising integrity,” Daniels said.

Long Thompson cited her family and husband and what they have taught her.

“The influence that has been the most significant is the value of hard work and integrity and working to make a difference,” she said. “The world is not about me. It’s about what I give to my community.”

Three recent statewide polls conducted for media outlets have shown the race to be close, two of them with Daniels and Long Thompson running within the margin of error, and another with Daniels just slightly ahead.

        

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