News of an upcoming New York fundraiser (featuring Jon Bon Jovi) to help pay off Hillary Clinton’s campaign debt peaked my curiosity.

After doing stories last summer about Indiana vendors left holding the bag following Clinton events in Indiana prior to the May primary, I decided to relearn my FEC database searching skills.  What I found was a surprisingly short list of creditors.  Most of those still owed money are corporate vendors and more than $5 million of the $6.3 million dollar debt is owed to one political consulting firm (Penn and Schoen.)

No one from Indiana is still on the list.

I’ll ask for predictions from the Indiana Week in Review panel on tonight’s show.  Here are mine in advance:

Political Story of the Year for 2009: 

Government Reform.  I say Mitch Daniels will succeed in his efforts to consolidate government to the degree that he can claim victory.

Surprise of the Year: 

Its unfair of me to pose this one but, since I did, here goes:  Republicans and Democrats in the General Assembly will cooperate for the second year in a row.

Politician to watch in 2009:

Congressman Mike Pence.  His new position as GOP Conference Chair will make or break his ambition for higher office.

Its time to start the end of the year stuff.  Here are my nominees for top Indiana political stories of 2008:

1.  Barack Obama carries Indiana

2.  Mitch Daniels wins re-election

3.  Hillary Clinton wins Indiana primary

4.  Evan Bayh considered for Obama running mate after assisting Clinton primary win.

5.  Democrats maintain control of Indiana House of Representatives.

6.  Mike Pence becomes GOP Conference Chairman in Congress.

7.  Township Assessors voted out of office. 

8.  Greg Zoeller wins Attorney General race.

9.  Tony Bennett wins Superintendent of Public Instruction race.

10.  Jill Long Thompson defeats Jim Schellinger in Indiana primary.

Change begets change at the Statehouse where 5 agency heads are leaving or moving to new positions in the Mitch Daniels Administration.

Replaciing Ron Stiver at the BMV is Andy Miller, the utility player in the administration.  Miller started as Secretary of Agriculture and currently serves in the Office of Disaster Recovery.  I won’t disclose the name of the Republican who suggested that “office of disaster recovery” is a good title for the BMV.

Mitch Roob moves from FSSA to the IEDC and proves his political skills (at least to me) in the process.  2 days ago I asked  Roob if he was on the way out at FSSA and he answered, “Well, I won’t be there forever.”  I asked if he had groomed his successor and he said, “yes.”  Roob, however, wouldn’t get more specific.  Deputy Ann Waltermann Murphy takes over at FSSA.

The appointment today of former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack to become Agriculture Secretary puts an end to the speculation that Jill Long Thompson was in line for that job.

A 40-percent showing alongside and Obama win should have been enough to spike it sooner.

Jim Hester and I have been a reporter/photographer team for 23 years and friends for longer, so much so that our identities are often combined. We get called The Jims, Jim Squared, Jim and Jim, even Good Jim and Bad Jim (you get to figure out which is which.)

That’s about to change. Jim Hester makes a career change next year, leaving broadcasting after 31 years at WISH-TV. I’ll still be covering Indiana politics but without the help and counsel that he’s provided on a daily basis. We covered Dan Quayle in the White House, Richard Lugar running for President in Iowa and New Hampshire, did weekly interviews with in the governor’s office with Evan Bayh and Frank O’Bannon, and much more.

We also got thrown out of the Pentagon together, he got accused of knocking Ed Bradley over on the floor of the 1992 Republican National Convention (he didn’t do it), and we once outpositioned a CBS crew so many times they turned off the audio control on Jim’s camera.

It’s been fun and a lot more people in Indiana politics than just me will miss seeing Jim on a regular basis.

Here’s wishing him luck.

Things to remember from today’s meeting of the Electoral College at the Statehouse:

-Butch Morgan took Secretary of State Todd Rokita off guard by asking if he and the other Indiana Electors needed a valid photo ID.

-Rokita also seemed flustered when alternate Elector Jenny Hill Weiser answered the roll call from the balcony.  The Secretary offered her a seat on the floor.

-On the floor of the House Chamber was a documentary crew from New York City.  I first told you about the Voting Film Project when the crew was in St. Paul at the Republican National Convention trying to decide whether to focus its documentary on Missouri or Indiana.  They picked Indiana and now feel like they won the lottery thanks to the Barack Obama win here.

-In the hallway watching was former state Representative and former Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor Dennie Oxley.  Oxley confirmed that he will be on the Indiana House staff in 2009 saying, “I’ll be around.”

The Blagojevich scandal makes public corruption a hot topic and most of the talk here is that Indiana is the anti-Illinois, a place where politics is clean.  Is it?

The Corporate Crime Reporter actually did a ranking based on a formula using public corruption convictions and population, among other things.   It posted findings for the 35 most populace states.

They show that Louisiana has the highest corruption rate and, among our neighboring states, Kentucky is highest at third.  Ohio is fifth, Illinois is only sixth (but some Blagojevich related convictions could change that.)

Indiana ranks 26th.

Governor Mitch Daniels informed state employees that there will be no raises in 2009.  That includes lawmakers, judges, and the governor.

The move will help balance a suddenly out-of-whack state budget (budget gap: $763 million.)

Here are the numbers for Daniels:

2008 pay:  $95,000

Scheduled 2009 raise (13%):  $12,350.

Democratic Party sources in Indiana report that the only Indiana politician with significant ties to Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is disgraced former State Democratic Chairman Peter Manous.

Manous, you may recall, went to prison for his role in a land deal in Northwest Indiana.

Blagojevich attended the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner in Indianapolis in 2002 when he was a candidate for governor at the invitation of Manous.