Back Home Again

HAMILTON county, Indiana's wealthiest, sits like a creamy white rosette atop Indianapolis' mud pie, and is known for three things: 150 million dollars worth of roundabouts, the legal foundation for making Driving While Black a Felony (one which, in fairness, it now wishes to disown, at least during daylight hours), and a One Party system which nevertheless manages to cough up politicians everyone hates, and especially current Indiana Secretary of State and felonious voter Charles P. "Yardbird" White.

White couldn't even get along with Republicans in Hamilton county when he was county chairman, which is like Mormon church elders getting crosswise with Mitt Romney. Then he got himself nominated for the Secretary of State job in the last election cycle. Sometime after that someone noticed that Charlie White was registered to vote at an address where Charlie White did not, as the legal term has it, live.

Seventeen months earlier White had separated from his wife, and moved in with his girlfriend, now Mrs. White II. He then forgot to transfer his registration to his new precinct. Hectic schedule, he says. Voting in the primaries didn't jog his memory. Neither did cashing his paychecks as a member of the Fishers Town Council, even though he no longer lived in Fishers.

Democrats argued that the failure to change the registration made him ineligible to run for office, since only properly registered voters are eligible. White's defense was that he'd been really, really busy, what with the divorce and counseling a Town an' all, and, besides, his ex-wife agreed that that was still his legal residence for purposes of keeping his ass out of prison. Unsurprisingly--since removing White from the ballot at that late date would have meant Democrats winning by default--the ruling was postponed until after the November elections. The matter was then dismissed, on a party-line vote, and White was officially allowed to stain the office.

Then this spring he was indicted on several felony counts, including voter fraud and theft of public monies. Governor Mitch "Ethics" Daniels urged him to step down. He didn't.

So a couple of days ago, in his capacity as Indiana's chief voting law enforcer, White filed a criminal conduct complaint against Evans Birch Bayh and his Lovely Wife Susan for voting absentee in Indiana while being absent. Because the Bayhs mostly live in Washington, D.C., where their twin sons go to school, and where Susan can be closer to all those pharmaceutical corporation board meetings she regularly attends. The Bayhs maintain a home in Indianapolis. They're registered to vote at that address. They're licensed to drive in Indiana. They don't vote in D.C.

In fact Charlie White makes no secret of the fact that his filing is solely intended to make a point, that point being that Charlie White shouldn't be charged with anything if he can think up some way to hurl the same charges at a Democrat. By which, of course, we mean "Democrat".

Sure, sure, some will cry partisanship, since this blog has stood by Evan Bayh through thick and thin, and excused his every Blue Dog capitulation, his standing up for the principles of free enterprise and free-flowing campaign funds in the face of unreasonable demands for equitable health care, and his every FOX News appearance. But this is just plain wrong.

And I thought you should hear about it. Because if the shoes were on the other feets you'd hear about it. Because you'd be able to hear Indiana Republicans screaming bloody murder right through your closed windows.