By DAVE SCHULTZ
There are three candidates for the Republican nomination for Indiana governor. The one that’s closest to home for residents of northeast Indiana is Eric Doden.
The current U.S. senator from Indiana, Mike Braun, is not running for re-election so he can run for governor. The current lieutenant governor of Indiana, Suzanne Crouch, is seeking to move up to the governor’s office.
Braun is from Jasper and Crouch is from Evansville. Doden, who has never held an elective office, is from Fort Wayne.
Doden did run for mayor of Fort Wayne in 2011 but did not win the GOP primary. He has statewide government experience as the former head of the Indiana Economic Develooment Corporation.
Doden is familiar with Bluffton. He was in the city the evening of March 11, in fact, for a Right to Life event at the Wells County Community Center at the 4-H Park.
He’s the only one of the three candidates who has never held an elective office. He certainly does not consider that to be a negative.
“I have been involved in state government with (former Gov.) Mike Pence,” he said during a telephone interview last week. He says he brings “a fresh perspective and new ideas to the equation.”
“We have a bold vision where we think we can improve the lives of Hoosiers all over the state,” he said.
Doden gives a lot of credit for his ideas on government to Jon Costas, the former mayor of Valparaiso (2003-19) who is seeking to return to that office this year. Doden met Costas in law school.
“He just really believes that the most important thing we do is serve the people,” Doden said. “Beyond that, he has taught me about bringing people together to solve problems.”
When asked why Hoosiers should vote for him, Doden made note of three ideas he is bringing forward as he runs:
• Support for smaller communities. “We’re the first candidate for governor to have a plan for our small towns through the Indiana Main Street initiative,” he said. “We spent more than $1 billion per year in economic development. We’ve never had a plan for the 2 million people who live in our small towns. We’ll take $100 million out of that $1 billion and put it toward small towns.”
• More money to the Regional Cities Initiative. This program is something Doden was involved with when he served with Pence. “We need all of (Indiana’s) regions to be successful, not just one or two of them,” he said. He wants to take another $200 million out of the $1 billion spent on economic development to beef of the growth budget for each region of Indiana.
“That will allow them (the regions) to have success in growing their economies and jobs and retaining our kids and grandkids to live in our communities,” he said.
• A teacher investment plan. “We know that education’s going to be critical and we have a crisis brewing, especially in our small rural communities, where we don’t have enough teachers,” he said. “We know if we don’t educate our children, that puts our future at risk.
What Doden wants to do is to allow teachers to be exempt from state income and property taxes. Under his plan, the state will replace the property taxes paid by teachers which support local government.
“It’ll be an average pay raise, we think, of about $4,000 to $5,000 per teacher,” Doden said. “And that has been really well-received and people are very excited about that.”
Doden was the first candidate to announce his bid for governor, ahead of Braun and Crouch. It does not bother him that they have experience in elective office but he doesn’t.
“If outsiders like me don’t run, nothing changes,” he said.
He notes that the 2023 Republican primary for Indiana governor will be the first such contested race in two decades.
“We welcome competition,” he said. “We think it’s healthy.
“We think it’s going to be a good and robust debate, a very healthy debate, a much-needed debate about the future of Indiana,” he continued. “We’re actually very excited to have Suzanne Crouch and Mike Braun join the race. We’re looking forward to that healthy debate and discussion and we think it’s going to be good for the state of Indiana.”
daves@news-banner.com
