We Want to Be Your Friend: Facebook Us!

Please allow us this post for some shameless self-promotion. Well, we are anonymous so it isn’t self-promotion but it is shameless blog-promotion. 

We’ve created a Facebook page and we want to be your friend.   Please click here!

We friended most of you who follow us on Twitter already so you may have received an invitation. If so, please accept us or it will give us a complex.

Thanks for reading WSP and, hopefully, for being our new friends on Facebook. 

Back to regularly scheduled blogging.

Mayor’s Race Round-Up: Weinzapfel and Wright Out for Mayor. Weinzapfel in for Governor?

There have been a few interesting developments regarding Mayor’s races around the state and we’ll plan to do some periodic coverage of what is happening outside of the Indianapolis Mayor’s Race.  If you have friends that want their local race or candidate to get a look from us, have them email us at washingtonstreetpolitics@gmail.com.

This week, we have Evansville and Beech Grove. Today, Evansville Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel announced he will not be seeking re-election as Mayor.  Weinzapfel has widely been speculated to be a potential candidate for Governor and this announcement should increase the chatter.  We’re betting that Weinzapfel will run.  As Eric Bradner said, “the question now isn’t if, but when Jonathan Weinzapfel will announce he is running for governor.”

Last night down in Beech Grove, Mayor Joe Wright surprised almost everyone by handing in his resignation at the council meeting.  Abdul noted there is speculation that it is regarding the finances and over on channel 6 news they are saying it is due to his private sector employment requiring more time.   We’re hearing that Mayor Wright is quite vulnerable and was not expected to be slated or able to win a primary challenge. 

Indianapolis City-County Councilor Susie Day has been eyeing a run at Beech Grove’s top spot for the last several months and, from what we’ve been told, would probably be able to win a slating contest. We’re hearing Mayor Joe Wright didn’t appreciate being challenged and is resigning in an effort to get his chosen successor in office and an upper hand in slating.  His position will be filled in a caucus of Beech Grove precinct committeemen.

Welcome and a Shout Out to Capitol and Washington

You may or may not have noticed that there is a new blog on the street.  Well, really an old blog with some new faces.  Regardless, we are happy to have the company.

Capitol and Washington just started up today and will have a lot of the features the Frugal Hoosiers blog used to offer.  FH has been forwarding over to Aiming Higher and it looks as though a few of their contributors decided to start a new blog.  Mike O’Brien, Cam Savage and Trevor Foughty will all be writing for C&W and they’ve added Tony Samuel, Luke Messer, Anne Hathaway and Brian McGrath. 

It sounds like the Ocean’s 11 of Republican blogs to us.  We’ve added it to our links and highly suggest you click the “Add to Favorites” button.

Friday Weekly Wrap-Up

Several interesting things have happened in the last 24 hours.

• Mark Massa was named chairman of the Alcohol & Tobacco Commission.   He gets started on Monday.
• Senator Richard Lugar sent out a letter taking on his critics and advocating for the START Treaty.  He asks for contributions at the $400, $300 and $200 levels.
• Indianapolis Times has it that City-County Councilor Jackie Nytes won’t be seeking re-election.  They reported it FIRST as Terry likes to write.  Jon Murray, however, gives more background on her accomplishments.   
• Melina Kennedy has a fundraising event for her mayoral campaign at the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art on Monday night with suggested contribution levels of $50, $100, $250
• Lastly, we had some news here at WSP.  Former State Representative Jon Elrod will be posting as a contributor from time to time. Expect to see his first post today.

Marion County Republican Caucus Set to Elect County Chairman

 A friend of ours just let us know that precinct committeemen started receiving letters today notifying of the caucus to fill the Marion County Chairman position. 

The caucus will be held Tuesday, December 14th at the Marriott East.  The caucus begins at 7:30pm and the credentialing is from 7:00 to 7:30pm. 

The letter notes that Precinct Committeemen and Vice Precinct Committeemen receive a vote provided they have served in the position no less than 30 days.

Those that would like to file to run for Marion County Republican Chairman must file a written declaration of candidacy at least 72 hours prior to the start of the caucus which would be Saturday, December 11th.  They must file with both the County Secretary and the State Secretary.  The list of voting members is provided once the written declaration is filed.

Official rules can be found at the State Party website, www.indgop.org and questions can be referred to the County Party HQ at 635-8881.

Truce: Happy Thanksgiving!

We’ll be taking the day off from blogging to enjoy the holiday and we hope you’ll do the same.

Before we do, however, we wanted to take this opportunity to declare a truce for the day and wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.   We can all go back to debating and disagreeing in a few days.

Now go eat some turkey!

A Little Housekeeping…

We just wanted to make a few comments before getting into some local news today.

First, we noticed that the comments section says that an email address is required to post a comment.  It is not.  We have no idea why it says that and we are going to get it fixed.  We wanted everyone to know you can comment anonymously so feel free to jump in the conversation.   We don’t care where you work since we post from the office too.

Second, we set up a twitter account so you can keep up with us throughout the day easily.  You can follow us at WashStPolitics.

Third, thanks to any new readers today.  We got a bit of a boost since Abdul Hakim-Shabazz mentioned us and we appreciate it.  Everyone is welcome here even if we don’t always agree.

Stay tuned.