jocelyn-tandy runs in another primary

primary elections are today in indiana. i'm not enough of a party wonk to get excited about primaries, but i have been intently following one race: the republican races for city-county council, where perennial also-ran jocelyn-tandy adande has been vying for an at-large seat.

jocelyn-tandy is no stranger to local politics. a former democrat, she ran in the democratic primary against the late julia carson in '96—her crushing defeat inspired an epic grudge and countless conspiracy theories about "the carson machine". she lost another landslide primary against bart peterson in '99. and she was involved in one of local democrats' most embarrassing fiascos of the last couple decades: she was the campaign manager for bob hidalgo kern in his disastrous run again dan burton.

(kern managed to sneak his way onto the ballot and even win his primary before the public caught word that he was a convicted felon. [choice JT quote from that article: "Bobby's election to the House will drive standards no lower than what they've already reached."] the party sued to get him thrown off the ballot, but failed. kern's candidacy was featured on the daily show at the time, a taste of which can be seen here.)

i first became aware of jocelyn-tandy via the indy star's long-deleted INtouch blog, where her writings were so over-the-top that she was kicked off the blog and her posts were excised. from there, she degenerated to copying and pasting her tirades in the comments sections of various right-wing blogs, having long since realized that the republican party was a better place for homophobes like herself.

she's been a republican for years now. this year's primary isn't even her first as a republican—after julia carson passed away, jocelyn-tandy ran (and lost) against jon elrod to become the republican nominee to replace her. but local republicans, terrified that the ballot's alphabetical order would let her eke out a victory over their chosen slate, sent out an attack mailer against her, complete with unflattering photo. the mailer accuses her of being some sort of liberal plant (as opposed to the die-hard social conservative that she is) who changed her name to trick voters (arguably true, but it happened more than a decade ago).

are republicans right to be concerned? will jocelyn-tandy finally win a primary election, after 15 years of trying? we should know in a few hours!

update: she's nothing if not consistent: jocelyn-tandy loses again, with only half as many votes as the next guy. what will she run for next year? ¶