when i read it on HPR i could hardly believe it.

in these times when the mayor is getting a lot of flak for his seeming inactivity on crime, when the indy star has daily health updates about a local cop who was shot in the head in the line of duty, on the very day when the star publishes another editorial begging the city to "drive down the crime rate" alongside a letter from the prosecutor about his "battle plan", you would think that mayor ballard would be focusing on crime. after all, crime was the signature issue of his campaign, and he threw such a fuss about putting himself in charge of the police department.

so when i saw that the mayor was scheduled to hold a press conference this morning announcing that he's going to be the new campaign chair to re-elect jon elrod, i was surprised, to put it mildly.

we're counting on mayor ballard to run the city, especially since right-wingers keep telling us how mayor peterson left it in such a shambles. but instead of taking charge and gittin' 'er done, the new mayor was spending his time helping his buddies campaign for the indiana statehouse?

it seemed bad enough for the mayor to be playing politics instead of running the police force that he fought to win control over (let alone the city he was elected to run). but to campaign for jon elrod, who famously abandoned his state seat in order to run against andré carson for congress, only to quit and run crying back to indiana house 97 after that proved to be too hard? it didn't seem real.

in the end, someone at the mayor's office must've realized what a PR nightmare it would've been for the mayor to be seen stumping in this political climate (particularly for an opportunistic quitter like elrod) and cancelled the mayor's appearance. of course, cancelling the press conference isn't the same as cancelling his involvement with the elrod campaign. i imagine ballard will continue to waste time he could be spending running the city on helping his buddy jon elrod run for re-election; he just might not want to advertise that he's doing it. ¶

Elrod is such a crybaby loser. He would be beaten by a poor quality Dem this year. To make matters worse, he is running against Mary Ann Sullivan who is intelligent, hard working and has made a real connection in the district. I expect she will get close to 60% of the vote in my district. ¶

Perhaps Ballard could help poor Jon with Federal fundraising. Elrod reported at the end of June, he still owed $16,423.60 from his unsuccessful Congressional run... ¶