Former Coats and Hostettler Staffer Makes Choice: Dan Coats!

Curt Smith
Executive Director
Indiana Family Institute
(Focus on the Family of Indiana)

By Brian Howey

INDIANAPOLIS — When it comes to the Republican U.S. Senate race, Curt Smith has had vivid relationships with four of the five candidates. He helped launch Richard Behney's campaign and he's worked with State Sen. Marlin Stutzman on marriage legislation with the Indiana Family Institute. He's been Dan Coats' Senate state director and congressman John Hostettler's chief of staff. When it comes to the Senate primary, Smith is making it clear whom he supports: Dan Coats. "When Dan called me and said he was getting back in the race, I was very excited because I know a little bit about the Senate having worked there for six years," Smith said. "I know how senators interact with one another. I am thoroughly convinced that Dan Coats would be the best possible senator from Indiana. That's not to take anything away from John Hostettler. John is a smart guy. But the House of Representatives is wholesale where groups and blocks come together to advance legislation. The Senate is retail. You've got to have ‘Triple A’ people skills on legislation to get votes on your issues. I just don't think John Hostettler is as well suited for the Senate as Dan Coats." The Senate primary is a presumed race between the two former Members of Congress, though Stutzman has won the endorsement of the American Conservative Union and U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint. A fifth candidate, Don Bates Jr., has asserted that unlike Coats, Hostettler and Stutzman, he has no government experience and, thus, has not been “part of the problem.” With Hostettler, whom he met at a 1994 Promise Keepers convention, Smith explained, "John's used to putting coal in there and getting electricity out of here and that's not always how the legislative process works." Hostettler graduated from Rose-Hulman Institute and was an engineer at Vectren before he ran for Congress. "A lot of times you need to bring the people skills in. You have to advance the conversation." "It's not only because Dan's been there before and served years in the Senate; it's his people skills, his ability to reach out to folks. He can do something with someone who was as far to the left as Ted Kennedy and not compromise his principles and not give the store away," Smith explained. “He has the skills to negotiate with people who think differently; to blur the ideological lines and look for consensus. Dan Coats will make the logical argument and establish the principles, but he knows that the art of persuasion includes a human dimension. Dan is going to connect with people.” "It's tough seeing John Hostettler having those kind of people skills," Smith continued. "I think John has this notion that the Senate is where you go and reflect. Because you have a six-year term it's the longest horizon in government, it's not a deliberative and reflective body as the Jimmy Stewart movies would suggest. The reality is the United States Senate is as reactive as the House, it just reacts differently." Asked for examples, Smith pointed to Coats' work to revamp the U.S. tax code in 1986 and his pioneer efforts on what he called the Project for American Renewal that eventually formed the structure for President George W. Bush's faith-based initiatives. On the tax code, Smith explained, "Dan secured a promise from President Reagan in a meeting with House Republicans. Dan almost single handedly was responsible for doubling the dependency exemption." As for Hostettler, Smith explained, "I just see John as a guy who makes the case and then he says, 'You decide.' Sometimes you've got to do more than that. You have to stay with it, be passionate and make the message. It was hard to get him to return media calls. He did not want to do fundraising. He did not want to meet with some of the constituent groups." There's another element to Smith's perception that Coats would be the better Republican nominee over Hostettler and that has to do with the 2006 election that Hostettler lost to U.S. Rep. Brad Ellsworth — the presumed Democratric Senate nominee — by 22 percent. Howey Politics Indiana reported in October 2006 that Hostettler essentially gave up on that race, citing several high-level Evansville Republicans. Smith recalls, "I sent you an e-mail saying you were crazy." But in retrospect, Smith explained, "I don't really know what happened in 2006. I did not see him as giving up. I saw him as being fatalistic.” That 2006 loss — the biggest by an incumbent that year — is in Smith's mind Hostettler's greatest liability. "The really tough question for John Hostettler to answer in his Senate campaign is why should he be the one to carry the Republican Party's banner when he lost to Brad Ellsworth by 22 points?" Smith said. "That's the question and I don't think John has a good answer." The columnist publishes at www.howeypolitics.com