Editor, Times-Union: When a candidate for the United States Senate plainly tries to deceive the public with his television advertisements, he does not deserve our votes.
This is especially true when the same candidate repeatedly ignored the plight of the mentally ill when he was governor of Indiana.
Evan Bayh knows very well that he demanded a state tax increase when he was governor, but the Republican General Assembly refused to inflict that increase on taxpayers of this state. Yet he is now deceptively taking credit for the fact that we had no tax increase.
He also tries to hide the fact that during his two terms as governor our property taxes soared to an all-time high, increasing much faster than the cost of living and inflicting great pain on senior citizens on fixed incomes and farmers especially.
Bayh is bragging about the state surplus, but he knows very well that that surplus was created by economical budgets drawn up by the Republican General Assembly and by the reprehensible legalization of gambling.
While he was governor, he shut his eyes to the fact that scores of mentally ill children had to be sent out of the state for treatment, far away from their families, because of the lack of treatment facilities in Indiana in violation of the state constitution, which he swore to uphold.
He repeatedly refused to give pay raises to state hospital employees when their pay was already on the poverty level and demoralized the Department of Mental Health by taking the power to hire and fire away from the Mental Health Commissioner for the first time in the state's history and giving that power to a political hack.
The state hospitals had constant waiting lists of people waiting for treatment with the results that an Indianapolis judge threatened the commissioner with contempt of court because a man he ordered sent to the Logansport state hospital was still languishing in jail.
While he was governor, he permitted a Democrat congress to cheat us out of more than a billion dollars a year in our gasoline tax funds.
That's the kind of a record Bayh is running on for the Senate so he can do the same kind of damage on a national scale.
Don Freehafer, Logansport
Libertarians
Editor, Times-Union: "This country is a one-party country. Half of it is called Republican and half is called Democrat. It doesn't make any difference. All the really good ideas belong to the Libertarians." Hugh Downs, ABC-TV's 20/20, March 1997.
The Libertarian Party is America's third largest and fastest growing political party. The Libertarian Party was created in December of 1971 by people who realized that the politicians had strayed from America's original libertarian foundation, with disastrous results. Their vision was the same as that of America's founders, a world where individuals are free to follow their own dreams in their own ways, a world of peace, harmony, opportunity and abundance.
The Libertarian Party will set a new record in 1998 by running the largest number of candidates in its history. At least 853 LP candidates will be on the ballot this November, a 16 percent jump over the 800 or so office-seekers the party ran in 1996 and a 31 percent increase over 1994, the last non-presidential election year. The candidates span the entire range of electoral politics; from U.S. Senate and governor all the way down to county coroner and school board. 180 federal candidates, 100 or so statewide candidates, around 375 state legislative candidates and the rest various local offices.
Included in the tally are 153 candidates for the U.S. House; which is more congressional candidates than the Reform Party, Natural Law Party, Green Party, U.S. Taxpayers Party, and all other "minor" parties are running, combined. In other high-profile races, the LP is running 22 candidates for U.S. Senate, and 19 candidates for governor.
Leading the list of states with the most office-seekers; California (115 candidates), Michigan (108), Indiana (87), Texas (49), Missouri and North Carolina (47), Vermont (44), Illinois (36), Pennsylvania (31), Colorado (26), Nevada (24) and West Virginia (21).
Indiana will run the most candidates per LP member. Indiana LP State Chair Rob Shuford said his state party was running so many candidates to send the message to voters that Libertarians were "the ones to watch" this fall. "The citizens of Indiana are tired of the increased spending and broken promises of the other two parties," he said. "We offer a reasonable alternative to the status quo."
The record number of candidates around the country represents the overall growth in party membership. Looking ahead to 2000, the party is expected to set another new record, and should exceed 1,000 candidates in that election. If every state were to run candidates at the same rate that Indiana and Michigan did this year, Libertarians could run 3,000 candidates or more for the first year of the new millennium.
You will find Libertarian solutions to important issues at http://www.lp.org. Or call toll-free: 1-800-682-1776. Locally you can make a difference by voting Libertarian for Rebecca Sink-Burris, United States Senator; Steve Dillon, Secretary of State; Michael Houze, Deanna Newton, and Daniel Stevens, Kosciusko County Council.
Daniel Stevens, Warsaw
Leukemia
Editor, Times-Union: On behalf of the Leukemia Society of America (LSA), I would like to thank the Warsaw community for donating to the LSA during a Team In Training "bucket shake" on Sept. 25. Your generosity was overwhelming! This is one way of raising funds for the Team In Training (people who are participating in marathons to raise funding for LSA). The Warsaw community is truly a caring and giving community!
The LSA is a not-for-profit voluntary health organization whose mission is to cure leukemia and its related cancers - lymphoma, multiple myeloma and Hodgkin's disease - and to improve the quality of life of patients and their families. The Society provides funding for research, public and professional education, patient aid and community service programs. The survival rate for the most common form of childhood leukemia has improved from 4 percent in 1960 to more than 73 percent today.
I am walking in a marathon in December in honor of a local resident, Mona Hemmer, and Bethany Grothaus, the granddaughter of Rev. and Mrs. Robert Koch.
The funds raised by the Team In Training program are the top fund-raising effort for the LSA.
This is an ongoing effort. Please continue to support Team In Training bucket shakes as you have in the past.
Christine R. Mowrey, Pierceton
Vote
Editor, Times-Union: Right again Gary, in your Oct. 10 "News Views," to add to that, people really don't care much about anything that goes on in Washington - because they feel there is nothing they can do about it. And that is what causes apathy or at least one reason.
Yes, not only should we be better informed about the people we vote for but also what they stand for. I don't care what ticket they run on, I look at what is good for "we the people." Let us all look at the issues at hand and how the candidates respond to these issues. If they can't relate to these issues, why would you want to burn your vote on them?
Case in point; Clinton! Back Clinton! So what do the unions do? They send union money, dues money, to the Democrats - Clinton gets in - Clinton signs NAFTA into law - jobs lost to Mexico - suckers! That is how I feel. Now here is the always present big BUT! of the story. The Republicans are just as guilty and some say even more so.
We don't have any control over who gets in the White House if you really think about it and do a little homework. So turning to the local races, we do have total control and here is why - our local representatives are always around. We say "hi" to them on the streets, in our churches and so on. Same with our state reps.
People say it's a right to vote. It's not a right to vote, it's an obligation, a moral responsibility to select the right person, be it Democrat or Republican! If we are not informed, how can we fill that moral obligation?
We have to face our representatives eye to eye with issues most important to "We the People." If we can't meet with those same people that are looking for our votes, how can we be duly informed?
People get involved! I don't care what party, that doesn't matter anymore. I like to think, and I do believe that this paper, our paper, the county's paper of record, will be the voice of "We the People." Thank you.
