C-J rips Baron again

The C-J editorialists are profoundly disappointed in Baron Hill and his vote against SCHIP. They singled him out for criticism in their initial column on SCHIP and then came back for another blast against Hill and Gov. Daniels on Wednesday.

On top of that, they published an "outraged" letter from Judy Barker on Baron's SCHIP vote. This isn't a big deal, except the same letter had already appeared late last week in the Jeffersonville/New Albany News-Tribune. The C-J does not like to duplicate editorial efforts. (For example, they will not publish op-ed pieces from me if they also appear in any other local newspapers.) But in this case, they've made an oversight or an exception.

If an oversight, they don't pay as much attention to the "competition" as one would expect. If an exception, it's interesting that they would violate a norm to take another swing at Baron.

Hill takes grief from Republicans and conservatives for a number of reasons. But he also takes hits from the Left-- most notably on his various stances on the War and now, on health care. (We also saw an episode of this at his economic forum in late August.) He ought to take grief from the Left for failing to address key issues that impact the working poor and middle class-- like payroll taxes and Social Security's lame rate-of-return. But they somehow fail to recognize those issues.

Will this make any difference in upcoming elections? Maybe. This issue will probably allow Hill's primary challenger to make more noise. And it may cause more liberals to vote for me in November.