Republican Leaders Attack Christine Scales for Standing up for Her Constituents and Conservative Principles

Well, the attacks against Indianapolis Councilor Christine Scales came late, but now they've started in earnest.  Near the end of this week a letter arrived in a mailbox of Scales' constituents which was sent by Council Minority Leader Mike McQuillen.  In the letter, McQuillen claims Scales is not really
a Republican because she at times voted against the Mayor and complained about her giving information to "seedy on-line blogs."  (This is opposed to the many seedy "off-line" blogs.)  At about the same time, oversized postcards began arrived from Marion County Republican Chairman Kyle Walker saying the same thing and claiming that Scales couldn't be "trusted." 

Councilor Mike McQuillen

Gary Welsh of Advance Indiana has a good accounting of the mailings, which I won't repeat here.

When one side waits until the last minute to dump negative material in a district, you know that they are doing that because they want the opportunity to lie to the voters without the candidate having time to tell voters the truth.  McQuillen and Walker didn't start earlier because they knew they would have been outed for lying to the public about Scales.

I'll instead counter with the facts.   McQuillen is the one who has completely betrayed conservatives and the Republican Party by his consistent support for higher taxes and fees and endless taxpayer handouts to politically connected companies.  Earlier on this blog, I detailed that Mayor Ballard has
pushed for 40 plus taxes and fees during his tenure as Mayor.  How many of those tax and fee increases did McQuillen oppose?  Not a single one.  Not one.  McQuillen has also supported every corporate welfare scheme hatched by the Ballard administration.  He didn't oppose the parking meter deal, the Broad Ripple Parking Garage, the Regional Operations Center, the  Justice Center, the Vision Fleet agreement for electric cars.  To rub salt on the wounds, McQuillen has at every step of the way opposed transparency of those corporate welfare deals and a more open and ethical city government.   That McQuillen, who hasn't a conservative bone in his body, would challenge the bona fides of another  Republican is quite amazing.


Marion Co. GOP Chairman Kyle Walker

Then you have Marion County Republican Chairman Kyle Walker.  Walker has personally profited immensely during the Ballard administration.  His wife, Jen Hallowell, has acted as a "political consultant" of Mayor Ballard, mysteriously getting paid $10,000 a month even during years when there was no election.   Like McQuillen, Walker has supported every one of Ballard's tax and fee increases, often issuing press releases supporting those increases.  Like McQuillen, Walker is not even remotely a conservative and doesn't care one whit about the taxpayers of Indianapolis.  Walker's only interest in politics is using his position to stuff money into his pocket and the pockets of his friends, even if what he does hurts the long term future of the Marion County Republican Party.

As county chairman, the No. 1 job Walker has is to find candidates.  In 2014, he failed to find candidates in 8 of 15 Marion County house races, including in three districts that would have been  competitive.  He also for the first time in maybe 80 years or more, failed to field a Republican candidate in a county-wide race.  Instead of doing his job in 2014, Walker spent his time trying to recruit someone to run against Christine Scales in the 2015 municipal primary, eventually having to go outside of the district to find a sucker candidate, who is, not coincidentally, an employee of a company that has benefited from Ballard's giveaways of taxpayer dollars.

Councilor Christine Scales

What has Scales done that has McQuillen and Walker so upset?  She has stood for integrity and honesty, and has refused to simply rubberstamp the Mayor's tax and spend agenda.  Unlike McQuillen and Walker, Scales is not in public office to enrich herself. She cares about her constituents and wants to do what is best for them.  And unlike McQuillen and Walker, Scales believes fiscal responsibility is not just a slogan one spouts during a political campaign to get elected, but rather is a philosophy that should guide how an elected official should approach the issues.

The bottom line is that if the well-known Scales loses the primary Tuesday, current at-large councilor Democrat Pam Hickman will probably win the marginally Republican district in the general election.  McQuillen and Walker are, in fact, spending donations to the Republican Party to assist the Democrats by knocking off a popular incumbent Republican in the primary.  They would rather have a Democrat in office, than a Republican like Scales, a principled person driven by her conservative values and dedication to her constituents.

McQuillen and Walker are nothing more than Republican cancer.  Our Marion County GOP will be much better off when both of them are gone.