Myers: COVID-19 has exposed inadequacies in state
A lot of things have happened since Woody Myers visited a group of supporters in Putnam County last November.
Myers has gone from one of three Democrat candidates to his party’s nominee for governor.
He’s chosen former Hammond police officer and State Rep. Linda Lawson as his running mate.
And, by the way, the COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed the way political campaigns and life in general are conducted.
“I would’ve been back (to Putnam County) sooner if it hadn’t been for this thing called COVID-19,” Myers told a meeting of Putnam County Democrats via Zoom Tuesday evening. “We were well on our way to getting out to all 92 counties and then — Wham! It shut us down. And it wasn’t just about getting out, we had to shut down several big fundraisers.”
Then again, the Myers-Lawson campaign has adjusted on the fly.
“In the old days, it was 80 percent in person and 20 percent other. Now it’s 80 percent virtual and 20 percent other,” Myers said. “It’s been quite a challenge to adjust but we are doing so.”
Now it’s three to five Zoom meetings a day and perhaps even attending an evening meeting in an Indianapolis Colts sweater, as Myers did Tuesday, rather than a coat and tie.
But Myers sees COVID-19 having a bigger impact on things more fundamental than campaigning. Asked if he thought the coronavirus was the most important issue to Hoosiers as the Tuesday, Nov. 3 election approaches, Myers said it’s not the virus itself, but weaknesses the pandemic has exposed.
These include inadequacies he sees in the health care system, in the affordability of health care, in the K-12 education system and telecommunication infrastructure to support distance learning and working.
Underscoring this final point, as Myers spoke on infrastructure limitations, he lost his own internet connection and had to rejoin the meeting a short while later.
In education and health in particular, Myers sees the two issues most fundamental to the state.
“Education and health are tied for the most important topics in the state,” Myers said. “The economy is third. I tell people, if you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything else.”
In terms of health, the longtime medical doctor says he still doesn’t like what he sees in the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
“We are still seeing somewhere in the neighborhood of 750 to 1,000 new cases a day in our state,” Myers said. “And we haven’t begun the fall surge yet.”
For confirmation a fall surge coming, Myers looks to someone on the other side of the political spectrum in the former Indiana governor and current vice president.
“If Mike Pence is warning folks, you know it’s coming,” Myers said, “because they (the Trump administration) don’t want to emphasize anything that is considered bad news.”
Yet Myers looks around the state and sees COVID-19 restrictions being lifted by Gov. Eric Holcomb.
“I’m worried when we have a governor who’s moving the state to Stage 5 when we’re still having 1,000 new cases a day and nearly a seven percent positivity rate,” Myers said.
He also said he doesn’t like having school superintendents keep schools open out of fear of what might happen to state or federal funding.
If elected, Myers said he plans to give schools accurate, easy-to-follow guidance.
“I still think we need to press the pause button until we see a sustained drop in cases, a decrease in positivity rate or we have a vaccine,” Myers said.
The path to the governor’s mansion remains an uphill battle, to be sure, in a state that last elected a Democrat to the office 20 years ago.
Myers sees reason for hope, though, in a recent poll showing Holcomb’s once 20-some point lead had slipped to six points.
A Change Research poll conducted from Sept. 3-7 showed Holcomb with 36 percent support, followed by Myers at 30 percent and Libertarian Donald Rainwater at 24.
“One of the interesting thing in that poll is it showed 57 percent of Hoosiers think we’re heading on the wrong track,” Myers said. “But I think that’s misleading because the Libertarian candidate is getting a lot of votes. And those votes are coming out of Eric Holcomb, not Woody Myers.”
Time will tell if the trend suggested by the polls continues and what sort of impact a potential three-way race could have on Election Day.
For now, Myers only knows to keep working toward his goal.
“Linda Lawson and I are getting out there, putting our masks on, communicating our messages and listening to voters,” Myers said, “because we feel there is a good path to victory in Indiana.”