Candidates get personal

BLOOMINGTON - Indiana's three candidates for governor offered a glimpse behind their politics into themselves Tuesday night in their final debate before the Nov. 4 election.

Questions covered their reasons for wanting the job, the biggest influences in their lives, their vision of the role of government and how they overcame their worst setbacks.

Sometimes, the answers were intensely personal.

"I made a big mistake while I was in college and I stayed a night in jail," Daniels said when asked about his worst setback. "The most severe price I paid was to my father."

Daniels was arrested as a student at Princeton in 1970 along with two others after a five-month investigation. Eventually he pleaded guilty to a disorderly person charge stemming from his use of marijuana. He was fined $350 and prosecutors dismissed other charges. He said it taught him the lesson of telling the truth.

Democrat Jill Long Thompson said her family's struggles to keep their northern Indiana farm during the 1980s made her "extremely sensitive" to the economic well-being of the state.

Libertarian Andy Horning said he was "basically an idiot" until he turned his life around at age 31 and became a different person through his religion.

Daniels, Long Thompson and Horning did get into some issues from previous debates, including the economy. Long Thompson continued to say the state was losing thousands of jobs, while Daniels said Indiana was in better shape than many states. Indiana's unemployment figure was 6.4 percent in August, up nearly 2 percentage points from a year earlier but lower than those of neighboring states.

Unlike many states, Daniels said, Indiana did not face a budget deficit or the prospect of tax increases. "I thought eventually we might see a kinder, gentler you but I guess it's not in the cards," Daniels said to Long Thompson. But the round-table debate at the Indiana University Auditorium was largely a series of philosophical questions asked by former television broadcaster Tom Cochrun. For example, Cochrun asked the candidates who or what had been the single biggest influence on their lives.

Daniels said besides his parents, it was Sen. Dick Lugar. Daniels served as an aide to him for several years after Lugar was elected to the Senate in 1976.
"His is a paragon of public service, the whole package of intellect, work ethic, uncompromising integrity," Daniels said.

Long Thompson cited her family and husband and what they have taught her.

"The influence that has been the most significant is the value of hard work and integrity and working to make a difference," she said. "The world is not about me. It's about what I give to my community."

Three recent statewide polls conducted for media outlets have shown the race to be close, two of them with Daniels and Long Thompson running within the margin of error, and another with Daniels just slightly ahead.

Daniels has outraised and outspent Long Thompson, and has run television commercials continuously since March. Long Thompson aired her first general election commercial in July, but hasn't run a TV ad for about five weeks. She said after the debate that she would be back on the air soon.

When asked why they were running for governor, Long Thompson said it was about the future of Indiana. Long Thompson, who served northwest Indiana in the U.S. House from 1989 to 1995, said she got interested in politics in the late 1970s when the nation's economy was struggling.

Daniels said before he ran in 2004 he had never considered running for political office. But he said he got restless when he saw state government falling behind and not providing services as well as it should be.