“The current House bill is the worst version yet, with truly awful consequences for Indiana.” 

That’s what Governor Mitch Daniels wrote in a letter to the Indiana Congressional delegation today.  The letter goes on to say that the bill would expand Medicaid, eliminate the Healthy Indiana Plan, and kill jobs.

He encourages Congressmen to follow the lead of Senator Richard Lugar who says now is not the time for health care reform.

Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize win is prompting all sorts of commentary about what little he did to deserve it.  Maybe the biggest factor to recommend the President is that he is not George W. Bush, as some say.  Yet he does have accomplishments.  And, his work with Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar to reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles is near the top of the list.

When Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn left the Senate, Obama took over his role as Lugar’s teammate in the ongoing effort to keep nukes out of the hands of terrorists.   The two traveled to Russia together for that purpose in 2005.  That same work won Lugar an earlier nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize and therefore is familiar to the Nobel committee.  (It was also the subject of campaign ads by Obama last year.)

Lugar may never win the Nobel Prize but you can make the argument that he owns a piece of this one.

State Democratic Chairman Dan Parker says he gets frequent inquiries from potential candidates about the possibility of running for U.S. Senate in 2012.  Not 2010.  2012.

That’s the year that Indiana Republican Richard Lugar will be on the ballot, if he chooses to seek another term.  Lugar is now 77 and in his 6th term in the Senate. 

All indications are that Lugar will go for term #7 but there is growing unrest among some Republicans upset with Lugar’s support of Obama moves (including the selection of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court) and his failure to campaign for John McCain last year.

All that put Lugar’s recent statement on health care reform in an interesting light.  When the Senator said this is the wrong time to tackle the President’s pet issue, was that a signal that, indeed, he will run again?  That’s what Parker thinks.

Today, conservative Democrats in the U.S. House say they see some progress in the push toward health care reform.   Those Democrats — and their colleagues in the Senate — side with Republicans who say this campaign is moving too fast for such a complicated and expensive bill.

That echoes the sentiments of Indiana Senator Richard Lugar when he visited WISH-TV, recently.  He told me the bill “clearly is being rushed.”  He said Americans are anxious.  They have health care and they’re afraid their care will be diminished as a result of reform.

“Health care was meant to, sort of, wind down expenses while bringing greater coverage.  But, it is hugely expensive.  So, therefore, you get the controversy: should we soak the rich?  Should we tax people who already have insurance and who are getting a little bit of something from their employer?  You know, where do you get the money?”

Congressman Jim Cooper, a Democrat from Tennessee, offered a suggestion on PBS, last night.  He told The News Hour “we’re estimated to waste about $700 billion a year in payments that not only don’t improve our health but actually sometimes harm our health.”  So, Cooper said, “we need to get all the payment from savings from the current system.”

Senator Lugar finds a parallel in the debate over the cap-and-trade debate for climate change.  “Both are running into huge problems,” he said, “because they have huge expenses, however you look at it.”

Maybe you already thought of this but current events in Washington are a great lesson in democracy.

It’s government action bracketed by two elections.

Barack Obama seeks the change he was elected to deliver in 2008 through cap and trade legislation and health care reform.   He feels he has a mandate.   He is making good on campaign promises, at least attempting to make good. 

Meantime, members of Congress look ahead to the 2010 election and how it will affect them, not Obama.  Rep. Baron Hill (d-Seymour) endorsed Obama early on and supported him on cap and trade.  Now, with Republican Todd Young showing fundraising success in Hill’s 9th District and the GOP questioning campaign contributions to Hill on the eve of the cap and trade vote, he announces opposition to the current health care reform bill.  The President needs to help him now.

Sen. Evan Bayh, enthusiastic in support of Obama at Indiana rallies last year, is suddenly his old, cautious self again.  Republican Senator Richard Lugar beat him to the punch announcing support for Sonia Sotomayor.  Bayh won’t take a public position on cap and trade or health care reform.  The Democrat is on the ballot in 2010 and, though a prohibitive favorite for re-election, is taking no chances.  He’s guy in the spotlight now.

The policy issues of 2009 will be campaign issues in 2010 and Barack Obama is not on the ballot.  But, maybe you already though of that.

Indiana Senators Evan Bayh and Richard Lugar are two of 9 targets of a television ad campaign pushing Health Care Reform by a group calling itself Health Care for America Now!  Here’s the text of the ad:

“Right now in Washington, Congress is working to fix health care.

And as a doctor, I know what’s most important is that you and I get to

make decisions about your health – not insurance companies.

That’s why you should have a choice. Keep the insurance you have now

or join a new public health insurance plan. With good benefits. At a

price you can afford.

So we’re no longer at the mercy of insurance companies making decisions you and I should be making together.”

Senator , Richard Lugar issued a statement today with regard to nuclear proliferation in Pakistan and his desire to apply Nunn-Lugar restrictions there.

It prompted me to ask?  What Democrat will team up with the Republican Lugar now in the effort to reduce nuclear stockpiles?  First it was Sam Nunn and then Barack Obama.  Obama is still engaged but clearly playing a new role.

Lugar Press Secretary Andy Fisher says Carl Levin and Robert Casey are candidates, but he also says there may not be a need for a lot of legislation on that front in the near future.

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.

The local newspaper this weekend pointed out accurately that outgoing Alaska Senator Ted Stevens is a native of Indianapolis and so is incoming Senator Mark Warner of Virginia. 

The reporting, however, suggested that with Indiana natives Evan Bayh and Richard Lugar, that gives Indiana three natives in the Senate, both before and after the new Congress takes office.

That is an incorrect answer to the favorite trivia question of Indiana Week in Review panelist Jon Schwantes.  The correct answer is four.  Indianapolis native Maria Cantwell represents the state of Washington.

The significant change will be in the number of Shortridge High School graduates in the Senate.  With the departure of Stevens, Lugar will be the only one.

Look for Mayor Greg Ballard to name Nick Weber as a deputy Mayor as soon as tomorrow.

Weber is a former aide to Sen. Richard Lugar (both in Washington and Indianapolis) and Mayor Steve Goldsmith who currently works in economic development.  He has experience running a political campaign, working with policy issues, and the media.

Weber is another strong choice for an administration that had few ready options during the transition.