I'm Here, Mike Pence Isn't. Get Used To It

     I'd like to say something witty and trenchant about Indiana's SoCon (but solid on guns and not terrible fiscally) Governor being tapped by Mr. Trump to run for Veep, but frankly--

     Frankly, I don't care.  Mike Pence was going to have a hard fight with his walrus-y opponent, the folksy (if perhaps a bit too much so) John Gregg.  Republicans Todd Rokita (a fairly solid guy on most issues I care about) and Susan Brooks (not bad, though more of an old-money Republican than Rokita) have stepped in to run, both of them dropping out of the re-election races for their seats in the House of Representatives -- and they were pretty much shoo-ins.  Only one will get the GOP nod to run against Gregg, who is already running plenty of campaign ads.  It's hard to see a lot of benefit to Indiana Republicans from Governor Pence's departure.

     So, yeah, I don't much care.  Mike Pence was a stick-in-the-mud SoCon but I believe he was sincere about trying to do the right thing and, with his feet held to the fire, he even backed down a bit over the RIFRA mess.  Representatives Brooks and Rokita were reliably consistent and the latter even showed an occasional streak of economic libertarianism.  I think Mr. Gregg is shoddy at best and perhaps two-faced; I don't trust him.  Overly creative district-mapping may preserve the two House seats for the GOP, but I don't know what the party is going to dig up to put in them and with today's GOP, they could be far worse than what they replace.

     Looks like I'll be voting a straight Libertarian ticket, my first single-party vote in a long time. I'll be looking at the results to see if my votes show up.  And so it goes.