The last Republican gubernatorial debate before the May 7 primary lit some fireworks.
Most of the attention following the clash between five contenders for the GOP nomination—the frontrunner, U.S. Sen. Mike Braun, R-Indiana, skipped the proceedings to attend a congressional vote in Washington, D.C.—focused on the role of moderator Jon Schwantes.
Schwantes, the host of WFYI’s “Indiana Lawmakers,” drew criticism from the participants for the questions he asked about former President Donald Trump and the 2020 presidential election. (Disclosure: Schwantes and I were colleagues years ago at The Indianapolis Star and The Indianapolis News.)
When Schwantes inquired whether the five candidates would have welcomed the endorsement from Trump that Braun received, they balked and muttered.
One of them—Jamie Reitenour, a mother of five who left a corporate career and says she’s running because her religious faith compels her to do so—chided Schwantes.
“It seems like you’re really trying to set us up and cause division in our party,” Reitenour said, while the other candidates breathed sighs of relief on the stage. “And we don’t appreciate it.”
Several things made this moment interesting.
The first is that Schwantes made it clear at the beginning of the debate that voters had submitted the questions. While it has become an unexamined and unchallenged cliché in rightwing circles to blame the media for any criticism of conservative thought or actions, the reality here is that Reitenour and the other candidates were arguing that the citizens who will elect them had no right to question them.
The second thing is that it was a valid question.
Every GOP candidate in the governor’s race has touted his or her devotion to law and order. It appears, though, that this loyalty is selective. It will be forgotten and forsaken if the Republican presidential nominee is the one charged with breaking the law.
The third thing is the fundamental absurdity of Reitenour’s argument.
Debates, by definition, are about division. They’re about determining how the candidates differ from one another—or if they differ at all.
If they aren’t about determining where differences occur between candidates, then debates are a waste of time.So, yes, the interlude that earned the most attention was intriguing, but it wasn’t the most revealing exchange of the debate.
That came earlier when the candidates clashed over the role and effectiveness of the Indiana Economic Development Commission.
Two candidates, Brad Chambers and Eric Doden, served as secretary of commerce under Gov. Eric Holcomb and former Gov. Mike Pence, respectively, and thus headed the IEDC. They defended the commission’s contribution to the state’s economic viability and touted the work they did bringing investment and jobs to the Hoosier state.
Reitenour and former Attorney General Curtis Hill attacked the IEDC as a kind of shadow government that is both unaccountable and unresponsive to ordinary Hoosiers.
Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch did her best to straddle the fence, arguing for aggressive economic development strategies that somehow never cause disruption in local communities.
That prolonged exchange demonstrated how much the Republican Party has changed in Indiana.
For at least the last half-century, the Hoosier GOP has prayed in the temple of business growth. The party’s priests were the leaders of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, who fought savagely for lower taxes, lax regulations on business practices and some of the weakest labor protection laws in America.
If there was a single article of faith that united the Republican Party here, it was this: What’s good for business is good for Indiana.
The debate, though, made clear that those days of GOP consensus are gone.
Chambers is probably the purest heir to that Republican legacy of fealty to business growth, but Hill and Reitenour both seek to speak to the concerns of social conservatives. Crouch and, to some degree, Doden try to straddle the widening divide.
And the candidate not on the stage, Mike Braun?
He, like his political father figure Trump, focuses all his energies on embodying resentments and gives nary a thought to policy considerations.
That’s why the debate between the Republican gubernatorial candidates went off like a lit firecracker tossed into a box of Roman candles.
The GOP now is a highly combustible mix of differing priorities and values.
Contrary to Jamie Reitenour’s complaint, no one needed to stir up division in Republican ranks.
It was already cooking.