This being the Saturday after an election, there is something in my genes that compels me to share some observations. This year’s is dominated by the story of local-boy-does-good Grant Bucher’s foray into running for office. Not just any office, but Northeast Indiana’s Congressional District 3 race. Best I can determine, no one from Wells County has done anything similar — running for a national level office — since a 1963 Lancaster Central High School grad ran for president in 1988. Something I only recently learned, it will be a story for another day.
When I first became aware that a Bucher from Angola had announced his candidacy, I wondered if he had a Wells County connection. Once that was confirmed, I assumed I would have the opportunity to chat with him at some point — which occurred this past November when he spoke to our local Rotary Club. That resulted in a profile printed a week or so later. Grant and I had some additional conversations during the campaign and he reached out to me on Election Day simply to say “thanks” for my sympathetic ear and being one of the media people in the district to recognize his candidacy. He subsequently agreed to a more lengthy chat about what he’d learned from his experience.
There are positives and negatives, of course; lessons of how things really work, which can often be discouraging. But he also leaves the experience with hope.
He did not go into the race naively. “But you get into it, you roll back the curtain and it is pretty much as expected,” he shared, referring to how critical fundraising is, how that works, the role the PACs play and then the amount of negative campaigning that arises, especially in the home stretch.
“There is a direct correlation between what you raise and how much attention you get,” he said, and then ultimately, how many votes accrue. “You can overcome that but it is really, really hard.” He is not ashamed nor is he disappointed with the approximately $75,000 his campaign raised, but that was dwarfed by the $1-million-plus war chests gathered by at least three of his opponents, much of that reported to be personal loans the candidates made to their campaigns. “Self-funding,” the term has come to be.
Hence, he figures he was outspent by about a 10-to-1 margin, “but when you throw in the money from the SuperPACs, it was more like 40-to-1,” he said.
The money that is spent by these Political Action Committees is “gobs more” than you can raise locally, which is limited to $3,300 per individual, Grant continued. PAC patronage is something he inquired about, but neither sought nor received. Data shows that more than $3 million came into Northeast Indiana from the PACs, spent almost entirely on negative attack ads against targeted candidates. It is a complicated and somewhat shadowy process to track who is funding what PAC and why they target who they do, producing ads I would describe as twisting what might be a technical “fact” into arguably undebatable fiction.
Grant is concerned about the degree of influence these groups have and is hopeful that someday those efforts could at least be re-directed in a more positive fashion. “We were spared,” any of that negativity, he said. I would surmise that was largely because without a voting record, there was nothing for them to misrepresent.
The importance of fundraising is not better illustrated, I think, than by what I would call the “debate fiasco.” WANE TV, WOWO Radio and the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette announced a joint effort to host a candidate debate forum for the race. Grant contacted one of the organizers, asking why he had not received an invitation.
“We’re inviting just the top four frontrunners,” he was told.
“Perfect,” he replied, “I’ve been running in fourth place in recent polls.”
After a brief pause, the person promised Grant he would get back with him. Grant was skeptical and asked if he could call back later but was assured someone would contact him. He never got that call. A subsequent announcement for the event held April 17 at Purdue-Fort Wayne stipulated that the four participants were “chosen by financial parameters.” It was, he admits, a major disappointment.
I have to wonder what might have been. Although these debates do not typically reach a large audience, might Grant’s participation and exposure have triggered some interest by someone who might’ve helped him expand his profile? Might his unique approach caught more media interest? His lack of experience would have likely been noted. One of his observations included in our profile last November comes to mind: “If experience in holding political office is the metric by which we have good Congresspeople,” he said, “then we should not have the mess in D.C. we have.” What might have been? We will never know.
Despite all that, “we got 10% of the district vote,” he gushed — 8,255 votes. “That’s just incredible. It is certainly more people than I had talked to throughout the campaign.” He calculates that his campaign spent about $10 per vote received while the “frontrunners,” including their PAC contributions, spent more than $75 per vote received.
“Of course, I would have loved to have won to make it abundantly clear that God’s hand was in this,” he continued. In his announcements of his decision to run for the office, Grant had shared that he had felt “called to run for this office” in order to fulfill God’s plan for his life. His advertising included the phrase “Inspired to Run. Driven to Serve,” a slogan meant to share that vision.
“I think we made a significant showing,” he said, certainly more than the professionals expected. Since Tuesday, he has heard from some people in Washington asking how an unknown rookie with no money could get that many votes. Which, he quickly added with a chuckle, “I’m not sure I want to brag about” or be too excited about any attention from Washington. “But I think we made some ripples in the pond.” So maybe, I am thinking, there is still something to God’s plan.
Which brings us to the positives that came out of the campaign, which he insisted are more numerous than the negatives. At the top of that list is “the awesome experience to do this as a family,” he said, “both nuclear and extended.”
He asked that I particularly mention his wife Melinda who “did more for the campaign than anyone realizes.” He mentioned his two sons, Grayson and Gentry as “the best little campaigners and encouragers.” It seems that while playing outside, Gentry, 4, would race to get some brochures whenever their neighbors would be out for a walk.
“I wish I would have taken a picture of Grayson (age 7) being determined to get the 4’x4’ signs out. He would manhandle these signs that are twice his size.”
There were several instances which “displayed God’s hand in this” when some needed funds suddenly and unexpectedly appeared.
His extended family also treated the effort as a mission and that “real excitement grew” as the campaign progressed. “I think what we discovered was that people are hungry for hope,” he said. I would throw my perspective in here: It was Grant who provided that hope, at least for me, that someone like him would make such an honest and positive character-based approach to a campaign rather that an issue or negative scare-tactic approach that has become all too common. “There is, I think, a hope that our government can be turned around,” he continued. He expressed being “excited and anxious” about where that sentiment might lead.
“We need a renewal in our nation and it’s not going to be accomplished by apathy or disengagement,” he shared at this point in our chat. Which caused me to jump down to what I’d thought would be my final question: “What’s next for Grant Bucher?”
He laughed. “My next race will be the ‘Ironman’ race,” he said. He is getting back to and stepping up his daily workouts, put aside by the political race. He has absolutely no plans for any further forays at this point but admitted that he was “not completely turned off by this process.” It is, I am sure, highly dependent on what he perceives his God wants him to do.
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“I was not MAGA enough.”
One of the first questions I asked Grant last November is whether he’d encountered what I called “the Trump litmus test.” It has become all too apparent that in order to win a Republican primary for almost any statewide or federal race in the country, one must pledge allegiance. (To be clear: Those are my words, not Grant’s.) What he shared then is the same as his synopsis now, but in the aftermath, he began by saying “I heard about Trump all the time.”
“I actually tried to be proactive about it when talking to a group,” he said, “but the question always came up. I always said ‘Look, I like a lot of what he got done. I wish there was someone as effective but less divisive. But if it comes down to a choice between Trump and Biden, I will certainly vote for Trump.”
That stance “was dismissed by multiple people,” he said. There was one of two responses: 1) “I can’t believe you would even consider voting for him.”
“But wait,” I replied, “These are people at Republican events?”
“Yes,” Grant affirmed. “There are a significant number of anti-Trump Republicans out there.” We both noted that Nikki Haley had garnered almost 22% of Indiana votes Tuesday without spending a cent in the state and officially suspending her campaign months ago.
But the majority reaction was clearly No. 2) “I only vote for MAGA Trump candidates.”
The bottom line was, even though Grant said he supported his policies and would vote for him, “that was not enough allegiance. I was not MAGA enough. I was not ‘Trump’ enough.”
Several years ago when Mike Braun was running for Senate (in 2017) and Jim Banks was running for Congress (in 2015), I had an opportunity for one-on-one chats and I asked questions about their opinion of Mr. Trump. They both had very similar answers to Grant’s at the time, specifically expressing their desire that he might clean up his act. But they have since learned the lesson to pledge full allegiance. And, not coincidentally, so did Marlin Stutzman.
“I wanted to ask ‘Why does that matter?” Grant continued. “My allegiance is to God, my family and the people I would represent. I would be willing to work with whoever is there.” Just like in his job, he cannot choose the people — the customers and other contractors — he must work with. But that is part of being a project manager for Weigand Construction, he explained, to get along and work together for the common goal. And the way it should be in Washington.
He did ask one person that question. Apparently it did not accomplish anything; I am guessing it only made matters worse. He didn’t ask it again.
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Which segues into looking at our local experiences. We certainly saw the impact of some of that $3 million spent by PACs. I was often amazed at all the shots taken at eventual winner Marlin Stutzman. Somebody in Washington doesn’t like him. Additionally, he was the early polling leader, putting the biggest target on his back. Nevertheless, he won back the seat he had given up to run for the open Senate seat six years ago that Mike Braun won. The discussion with Grant about this was largely speculative on both sides but interesting. Grant related that unfortunately, negative campaigning works. Stutzman began with a majority lead in the polls that was reduced to the 24% plurality that barely topped second-place Tim Smith, who of course was the target of other attack ads.
In hindsight, I wish I would have kept a tally of who sent how many mailers for all the contests before I chucked them into the recycling bin on my walk between the mailbox and the house.
And in the top local race, two lessons from Grant’s experience apply. There is, as Grant mentioned, a direct correlation between the money spent and the attention and votes you get. I have not seen the final tally of receipts and expenses yet, but it will be interesting to compute the amount of money spent per vote received in the commissioner race and where that came from.
Although there was, thankfully, no negative campaigning, I would question one mailing which tied illegal immigration and 2nd Amendment rights to local county government. What one has to do with the other is a mystery, except that it employs the scare-tactic-issue approach. Although Trump was not invoked, the spirit was there. Just made me scratch my head.
Which, in the end, summarizes my view of political campaigns at the national and state levels in these divisive times. They seem to want to further divide us in order to get elected. Which, to come full circle, helps me appreciate Grant Bucher all the more.
“I hope this isn’t the last time we talk,” he said as we ended our conversation Thursday. Me too.
miller@news-banner.com
