Menu
Barbs remain as Braun, Rokita make late campaign appearance in Putnam County
Even the bucolic setting of what one candidate called “the nicest, prettiest venue” he’s visited this campaign season didn’t tame the rhetoric of a nasty U.S. Senate campaign Saturday evening.
Visiting the Putnam County Lincoln Day Dinner at the newly-opened Three Fat Labs Wedding & Event Barn just three days before Tuesday’s primary, rivals Mike Braun and Todd Rokita — two of three Republicans hoping to unseat Democrat incumbent Joe Donnelly in November — kept up the talking points they’ve carried around the state for months.
Braun, a Jasper businessman and former member of the Indiana House of Representatives, continued to paint himself in opposition to longtime politicians like Rokita and fellow Congressman Luke Messer, who was not in attendance Saturday.
“I’m fed up with business as usual. We have an institution with a 15-percent approval rating,” Braun said of Congress. “They get out there in D.C. and forget about their roots.”
He spoke of the need for term limits in Congress, “otherwise we can expect the same results and we’ll come closer to calamity.”
Braun went on to tout his ability to spend his own money for the Senate campaign without worrying about whose money helped get him there.
“I won’t be beholden to anyone,” Braun said.
Rokita spoke differently of his opponent’s finances.
“You’ve got Mike Braun spending six million of his own dollars to try and buy a Senate seat,” Rokita said.
Like Braun, Rokita also presented himself as an outsider, despite four terms as Indiana’s Fourth District congressman and two terms as Indiana secretary of state before that. He was effusive in his praise how President Donald Trump has changed Washington.
“He has turned it upside down and I love it,” Rokita said.
The congressman cited a history of going against the grain, such as moving Indiana to requiring IDs for voting when he was still secretary of state, even as it was unpopular with the political establishment and the media.
“We didn’t know it was called fake news at the time but that’s exactly what it was,” Rokita said, parroting one of the president’s favorite terms.
Throughout a brief speech, Rokita strove to align himself with the president, saying he has the support of “the Trump Indiana team from 2016,” while discussing his “100 percent pro-life” stance, his opposition to sanctuary cities and his defense of the country’s sovereign borders.
“Help me help Donald Trump make America great again,” Rokita beseeched the crowd.
For his part, Braun also praised the president and how he “shook up the system.” However, he believes it takes another political outsider — as Trump was two years ago — to truly partner with the president.
“I’m going to try and get things moving again in D.C.,” Braun said.
While their mutual opponent Messer was elsewhere Saturday, Braun and Rokita weren’t the only candidates from high-profile races in attendance.
From the race to replace Rokita in the Fourth District, Greencastle’s Jim Baird, Steve Braun (brother of the Senate candidate) and Diego Morales were all in attendance from a field that features four other Republicans as well as six Democrats.
State Treasurer Kelly Mitchell and Auditor Tera Klutz — the evening’s keynote speaker — were also among the guests. Neither Mitchell nor Klutz appears on the primary ballot, but will be up for their respective GOP nominations during the 2018 Indiana Republican State Convention in June.