INDIANAPOLIS - The Senate race between U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly and state Treasurer Richard Mourdock may be best understood by what each campaign is not talking about.
Donnelly avoids discussion of his vote in favor of Obama's health care reform plan after support for the plan arguably cost many other Blue Dog Democrats their offices in 2010.
The Republican Mourdock has stopped speaking out against bipartisanship in Washington, though during the primary he stridently maintained true conservatives don't compromise with Democrats.
Both campaigns maintain their candidates haven't changed positions and aren't shying away from anything, but silence says a lot. Gone from President Barack Obama's 2012 campaign are the "hope" and "change" themes he used to win broad support in 2008.
The extent of former President George W. Bush's support for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has consisted of telling an ABC reporter "I'm for Mitt Romney" as the elevator doors closed in front of him. Other than that, Bush has been absent from the 2012 presidential contest, despite Democrats' efforts to drag him in.
In the same fashion, Mourdock has worked to tie Donnelly to Obama, in part with a fundraising appeal that features images of the two digitally altered so they are next to each other.
Meanwhile, the Donnelly team has worked hard to cast Mourdock as someone who appeals just to the tea party, forcing state Republican leaders like Gov. Mitch Daniels to defend him as a "mainstream Republican."
The Mourdock campaign said he has remained consistent through the primary and general election.
"The issues Richard has been talking about have not changed," Mourdock campaign manager Jim Holden said. "His main goal is still to go to Washington to challenge the big-spenders in both political parties in order to balance our budget and tame America's now $15 trillion national debt. He will also continue to talk about the negative impact of Obamacare, which was forced on the American people without a single Republican vote in Congress, on Hoosier jobs and the economy."
Donnelly communications director Elizabeth Shapell said her candidate hasn't changed either.
"Joe is focused on two main issues important to Hoosiers: job creation and ending the partisan games in Washington that prevent solutions," she said.
In the governor's race, U.S. Rep. Mike Pence has spent most of his time talking generally about how he would run the state, while former Indiana House Speaker John Gregg has tried to focus attention on the congressman's votes in his last 12 years in Washington. The Indiana Republican Party, meanwhile, dug up Gregg's votes from his time in Indiana's General Assembly.
Sometimes that digging by opponents means catching information before it vanishes. Voters got a reminder of the ever-tenuous nature of information provided by a political campaign when the Mourdock team pulled down almost all of its primary materials attacking U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, including a campaign ad that touted the "bromance" between Lugar and Obama.
The Mourdock team said it was normal to pull down primary material because that campaign was over. But Democrats accused Mourdock of an about-face.
Former U.S. Rep. Chris Chocola, president of the anti-tax Club For Growth and a major Mourdock backer, responded that Donnelly left some key information off his own website - the word "Democrat."
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