We welcome this week’s debate over which of the candidates for Secretary of State is the truest Hoosier. It allows us to address our concern that Indiana politicians have for some time been expatriating after building careers on the backs of Indiana voters and collecting a sufficient number of government checks.
The debate is rich in irony in that Beau Bayh, from a family known for treating Indiana as a mailing address, has claimed the high ground thanks to a supine media. In any case, a measure of Hoosierdom can be set. Mine is that your family has owned property in Indiana for at least three generations and you plan to retire here. That is admittedly strict, considering that less than half of Indiana families can name three generations or more in the state.
Nonetheless, Mike Braun, Eric Holcomb, Marlin Stutzman, Jim Banks (who can trace his ancestry to the Revolutionary War) and the late Lee Hamilton meet those qualifications. Not meeting them would be anyone in the Bayh family, Dick Lugar, Dan Quayle, Greg Ballard or Pete Buttigieg. And disqualified under the three-generation rule are Mitch Daniels, the grandson of a Syrian immigrant, Todd Young, born in Pennsylvania, and Mike Pence, whose family moved here from Chicago shortly before he was born — nice guys but neo-carpetbaggers.
To tell you the truth, though, I would be happy if my politicians, however long their residence, would retire to the Indiana hometown that nourished them so generously. At least Holcomb, Banks, Daniels and Pence seem to like Hoosiers enough to want to stick around.
For there remains a hint of provincialism in the Hoosier character. There is an expectation, however weakened, that politicians who owe their status and ample retirement benefits not to marketable skills or productivity but to the loyalty of a constituency should retire amid that constituency. We expect them to honor a hometown, not just a P.O. box.
What the rest of us mean by a hometown is what Harry Truman, “the man from Independence,” meant by a hometown. Keeping tabs on the retired president wasn’t difficult. Harry was always at home except for his morning walks. And it was the home, please know, that Harry owned before he went to the White House.
“I’ve been taking my walks around the city and passing places that bring back wonderful recollections,” Truman wrote. “The Presbyterian Church where I started to Sunday school at the age of six years, where I first saw a lovely little golden-haired girl who is still the lovely lady that is my wife. What a pleasure to be back here at home — once more a free and independent citizen.”
Times change, say those who reject such sentimentalism. The new politician, it can be argued, serves his hometown best by maintaining a presence near a power center — Washington, New York or, if duty calls, the exotic capitals of Europe or the Orient.
We could buy that except so many of the places in which our politicians choose to retire have beach frontage — a far cry from the Indiana town squares from which they first petitioned our trust and support. What is it about the sunny coasts or the social swirl of Georgetown that so commends a devotion to Hoosier values?
And while we’re at it, isn’t there somewhere our governor and legislative leaders could visit on their annual summer trips in search of Hoosier jobs that doesn’t require a luxurious jet ride across the Atlantic or Pacific?
Perhaps it’s too much to ask. Our leaders, in addition to the times, have changed. A British historian, Paul Johnson, relates a conversation between King George III and an adviser following the shocking news from Yorktown:
“What will George Washington do now?” the king asked.
“I expect he will go back to his farm,” was the answer.
“If he does that, he will be the greatest man on earth,” the king responded.
Indiana has less than six weeks remaining in another election season marked by unbridled ambition and narrow factional maneuver. It may be your last chance to cast a vote for a person of accomplishment who looks forward to returning as a “free and independent citizen” to family, friends and neighbors. — tcl
