Long-Thompson & Oxley stop in Fort Wayne

Long-Thompson introduces Dennie Oxley as her running mate:




Jill Long-Thompson met with a small crowd near Fort Wayne International Airport this afternoon to introduce Dennie Oxley as her choice for Lieutenant Governor. A short meet and greet took place before Rep. Win Moses took the podium to introduce Long-Thompson, who then in turn, introduced Oxley. Both candidates spoke for several minutes about their vision for the state of Indiana.

Long Thompson:

"Dennie;s legislative career demonstrates that he is an effective leader and a champion of working people. His experience in the legislature, in the classroom, and in the business world will be put to good use. He's exactly the kind of Lieutenant Governor we need to help bring new prosperity and opportunity to communities across Indiana."

Oxley:

"Jill is a proven leader with executive experience - and I'm honored to partner with her to fight for better opportunities for all Hoosier families. Together we will work to grow our economy, protect good-paying jobs, lower health care costs for working famiies, strengthen our schools and overhaul the entire tax structure to make Indiana more competitive."

Oxley was first elected to the Indiana House of Representatives in 1998, and represents portions of eight southern Indiana counties as well as serving as Majority Whip for the House Democratic Caucus.

UPDATE: Video of the event

Local Treasures

A little over a week ago, Kevin Whaley ,published a post about Foster Park, the suspension bridge to be precise. I've enjoyed that site since I was a teenager a long long time ago, and have enjoyed sharing it with my kids as well. Today we made the trip there once more:

Samantha and Sabrina on the north end of the bridge

The bridge, looking north from the park side
A side view from a park trail

*Note to our out-of-town readers: Our rivers aren't actually dirty. They've always looked the way that they appear today; it's the local soil that colors them so muddily.

Views of the St.Mary's River from the bridge
One of many huge old sycamore trees along the riverbank

Just one of the many treasures to be found in our fair city. . .

Obama Family Picnic Tomorrow

Join the Obama family at a picnic in Fort Wayne on Sunday, May 4th:

Fort Wayne Family Picnic with the Obama Family

Headwaters Park
Pavilion
Fort Wayne, IN

Sunday, May 4th, 2008
Doors Open: 2:30 p.m.
Program Begins: 4:30 p.m.

The event is free and open to the public. Admission is based on a first come, first serve basis. Limited free parking is available in the lot adjacent to the pavilion; carpools are encouraged.

For security reasons, do not bring bags and limit personal items. No signs or banners are permitted.

McAuliffe on Fort Wayne

Not surprisingly, depending on from where and whom you get your news, you likely get a variety of viewpoints. Take Terry McAuliffe for example. In today's Journal Gazette, he discusses the importance of Fort Wayne and the surrounding areas to the Clinton camp.

Benjamin Lanka of The Journal Gazette reports:

Terry McAuliffe, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign chairman, made it quite clear the importance of northeast Indiana voter turnout for his candidate during his stop last week.

McAuliffe was in town to open Clinton’s local campaign office on Fairfield Avenue. He said it is vital for the party to have a fighter win the nomination, saying Vice President Al Gore should have won easily in 2000, but Democrats didn’t fight hard enough. He also said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., should have won in 2004 but didn’t respond quickly enough to criticism about his military record.

He said Clinton will be that fighter in the fall election, but it will be important for Hoosiers to support her this May. He said about 20 percent of the state’s population gets Chicago television – which he called Obama’s networks, as Sen. Barack Obama hails from Illinois. To balance that out, he said other areas of the state, including Fort Wayne and surrounding areas will need to come out strongly for Clinton.

However, those of us listening to The Ed Schultz Show on Air America on Monday afternoon received a completely different message from Mr.McAuliffe. McAuliffe, en route to the Summit City to open the local Clinton campaign office after working his way up the state, made some rather disparaging remarks about our part of the world.

Ed Schultz asked him if he really thought Hillary Clinton could still win at this point, with the math being what it is and all. McAuliffe replied "Ed, I've been driving through Indiana all morning. I would NOT be sitting here in a McDonalds off of I-69, in Fort Wayne of all places, eating a filet-o-fish sandwich if I didn't believe she could win".

Interpret that however you wish, but what I took away from it was that it was a burden for him to be here. Much in the same manner as the Clinton campaign dismissed the importance of all of the 'little states that don't matter" a while back. Mr.McAuliffe, welcome to our small corner of a "little state" that all of a sudden seems to matter. Just for the record, although we ARE forced to endure mainly conservative talk radio on our radios, we do get satellite radio here in podunk as well. . .

Fort Wayne City Inaugurations

This afternoon I attended the City Inaugurations at the Performing Arts Center in Downtown Fort Wayne, where the new mayor, Tom Henry, City Clerk - Sandy Kennedy, Police Chief - Rusty York, Fire Chief - Pete Kelly, and the City Council - Tom Smith, Karen Goldner, Tom Didier, Mitch Harper, Tim Pape, Glynn Hines, Marty Bender, Liz Brown, John Shoaff, were sworn into office.

The Master of ceremonies for the event was the Chief Judge of the Allen County Superior Court, Stanley Levin. After a short introduction by Judge Levine, the Fort Wayne Police Department Color Guard and Pipe and Drum Brigade piped their way onto the stage and back off. City Clerk, Sandy Kennedy’s granddaughter, Kaitlyn Kennedy led everyone in the Pledge of Allegiance and Father Joe Gaughan of the Most Precious Blood Catholic Church gave the invocation.

This led to one of the highlights of the afternoon. The Voices of Unity Youth Choir under the direction of Marshall White sang perhaps the best version of “The Star Spangled Banner” I have ever heard. You can see the Pipe and Drum Brigade followed by this stirring rendition in the following video.

The choir also performed a nice little version of “America the Beautiful”.

At this point, the oaths of office were given. Here are Police Chief Rusty York and Fire Chief Pete Kelly taking their oaths.

The next video is Mayor Tom Henry taking his oath, the City Council being sworn in, and Mayor Henry’s inaugural address.

After the ceremonies, there was a meet and greet in the gallery. All in all, it was nice afternoon.