State Senator Frank Mrvan is running scared of his opposition in the coming November election. This response on his part has some real substance and is not just a ploy or a figment of someone's imagination. Mrvan is very vulnerable and he knows it.
First, he has never been a good campaigner and whenever he has had a significant competitor he has lost. He now has a competitor, Chris Morrow, who is good in public presentation and can think through policy and idea positions. In addition, Mrvan has won primarily on name recognition, as has his son. But in this race, Chris Morrow's name is almost as well known from his years of being president of a local bank and his public service on many different civic boards in Northwest Indiana.
So Mrvan is facing a skilled campaigner with name recognition that almost matches his own. It should also be pointed out that the challenger has significantly greater resources to spend on this race than Mrvan has.
Two, although Frank Mrvan has served in the Indiana Senate for decades, i.e. he is over the hill, he cannot run on his record. The first reason is that for having been in the Senate for so long he has no record to speak of. There are few bills that he can actually claim that he initiated or were his idea. Generally speaking he has been irrelevant to NWI. For example, he just announced through free mail, a perk he receives as the incumbent, that he is going to propose a limit on fireworks. So what, everyone else in the legislature is going to propose the same thing. Mrvan lacks any unique and fresh thought. Not only is he not a leader; he cannot even be a follower. In reality he has made himself irrelevant.
He is facing someone who is articulate and can present new ideas. But the reality is that Mrvan is so irrelevant that there is nothing to be gained by voting for him. The value is voting against him to send a message to the other legislators that "we are damn mad and we are not going to take it anymore!!" Chris Morrow represents the one chance for NWI voters to show that they are damn tired of these do nothing incestual relationships.
Mrvan thinks he can succeed by looking at the GUEA and Morrow's presidency of it. Mrvan forgets that the GUEA is in Gary and no one in his district cares. Further if Freeman-Wilson as attorney to the GUEA can run for Mayor then the Board of the GUEA is irrelevant for the Senate District. What Mrvan forgets is that if he forces people to look back at Morrow they are going to look back at Mrvan's vote to raise everyone's property taxes. No one should forgive him for being one of the legislators who worked for and voted for each of the bills that skewered the tax payers of Northwest Indiana.
It was Mrvan's doing that has NWI in this pickle no else's and a message needs to be sent out to all of NWI's legislators telling them to pay attention to the citizens needs or out you go. It is the need to send this message that frightens Mrvan above all else because that is how he would vote.
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