He quit his job to do this

By Mike Leonard

Dee Owens was having coffee at Hive restaurant with her friend, Regina Moore, when she noticed another friend having a conversation with a gentleman across the room.

‘Who’s he?’ she wondered.

On the way out the door, Moore offered to introduce Owens to the gentleman. Brad Meyer. “And he’s running for congress,” she elaborated.

Moore knew exactly what she was doing. Owens is a spirited Democratic activist. It was time they met.

“I really laid into him with some difficult questions,” Owens says with a laugh. “And he came right back with answers, and pertinent questions to ask about solutions, and after a while I thought, hmm. OK. This guy’s an informed, intelligent guy.”

Some say he’s the person the Democrats need to look to as the spring primaries and fall general election loom on the calendar. Too few people even know who their Republican representative in the Ninth Congressional District is, or who is running for the Democratic side of the ledger. Most importantly, everyone concerned for their country over President Donald J. Trump’s reign of terror and the fawning sycophants in Congress who enable it need to be accountable. They continue to support the impulses and policies of a man former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley described as “ fascist to the core.”

A flip of even one seat from Republican to Democrat could put the House under Democratic control and build a big, beautiful wall to Trumpism to navigate.

So what does Brad Meyer bring to the Ninth District constituency? How can a Democrat break through?

He’s a seventh generation Hoosier who grew up in Brownsburg, earned an engineering degree from Purdue, and most recently worked as a Navy civilian engineer supporting the Naval Surface Warfare Center, working on electromagnetic warfare aimed at protecting sailors from missile threats.

But here’s the gee-whiz aspect of his run for Congress. He quit his job a year before he could take early retirement to enter the political fray. That merits a “what?”

“I was so deeply concerned with what I was seeing and concerned that we didn’t have a strong, progressive candidate who was going to get people off the couch and vote,” he explains.

But quitting his job that close to retirement age? “We were on a glide plan to retirement and were going to work seven more years and my wife (Debbie) and I were going to retire and have our golden age,” he says. “It is a financial sacrifice. These are supposed to be my prime earning years and now I’m making zero.”

The Ninth district, which stretches down from Bloomington and Columbus to Jeffersonville and New Albany, has been represented by Republicans for more than two decades. Incumbent Congresswoman Erin Houchin is among the most loyal of Trump supporters, supporting his border wall and immigration tactics, and she was one of seven Republicans on the House Rules Committee to vote against a motion to compel the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, thus keeping the initiative from a full House vote.

She seems vulnerable.

Houchin earns approval ratings including a 66% score from the far-right Heritage Action for the 118^th Congress, 57% from the John Birch Society, 100% from the National Right to Life Committee, and 88% from Americans for Prosperity, the powerful Koch brothers’ right-wing political advocacy group that opposes Obamacare, Medicaid expansion, labor rights and environmental oversight. Among other inconveniences to the business of business to pursue profit unfettered.

From the other direction, the League of Conservation voters gives her a 0% rating; she gets 0% approval from the Alliance for Retired Americans, 14% from The Lugar Center (Richard Lugar was a six-term Republican U.S. Senator from Indiana) and 0 % from the National Education Association.

At this point, of course, Meyer will have to beat out six other Democrats running for the party nomination, including James Davidson, Jim Graham, Emilee McCartney, Timothy Peck, Keil Roark and Cody Voyles.

And while the differences between the Bloomington resident and the Salem, Indiana-born Republican are clear and dramatic, Meyer stresses that his own party needs to chart a better course. “We’re on the wrong path, not just as a country but as the Democratic Party,” he says. “We have to start advocating for things that are going to make a difference in people’s lives. Frankly, we’re playing defense all the time and we count holding them at the line of scrimmage as a success. We’re not fighting for the things we believe in.”

Meyer champions universal health care. Working to reinforce American democracy, diplomacy and respect in the world. Fighting the Republican efforts to dismantle public education and dictate curriculum at state universities. Ending the consistent practice by the Trump administration and Congress to eliminate laws and policies to protect the environment.

Those are positions emphasized on his website, and in conversation.

Meyer’s challenge is breaking through the fragmented media landscape, making his agenda understood, and doing it in with a strategy a Republicans have employed effectively. Brevity. An accepted challenge for an engineer (insert engineer joke here) and admitted policy wonk.

“He’s kind of like my ideal congressional candidate in that he’s willing to give up his own life, in essence, in order to pour everything into running,” says Owens, the political veteran and activist within the Democratic party.

Owens views the coming primaries and general elections as unusual and unpredictable territory, with hopeful signs coming from Democratic victories in deep red districts nationally. The Democratic National Committee doesn’t have Indiana’s Ninth District on its list of possible swing districts, meaning that financial help from the national party might be hard to come by. At this point, at least.

“Brad is in a good position, I think, regarding the electorate,” Owens observes. “He’s a step down from the Boomers, but he understands where they’re coming from. He also has opportunities with younger people, people his children’s age. People who are struggling just to achieve a middle class existence. He’s one of us. He knows what it’s like to be us.

“Houchin is nothing more than a blonde mini-me (for Trump),” she says. “She doesn’t do town halls. She’s afraid of her constituents. All she wants to do is be a sycophant to 47 and that is not serving us well,” Owens says. “Brad is not afraid to tell people he’s a Democrat and he comes from a long line of Democrats, despite the fact that the name has been tarnished by those who wish to portray Democrats to have horns and red tails.” 🐝

Editor’s note: Meyer will stage a public town hall at the downtown Monroe County Public Library, 5-6:45 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 11.