POLITICS

Meet Eric Holcomb, the Republicans' new candidate for Indiana governor

Tony Cook, and Chelsea Schneider
IndyStar
Eric Holcomb, the Republican candidate to fill Mike Pence's spot as Indiana governor, is announced in a conference room downtown, Indianapolis, Tuesday, July 26, 2016.


UPDATE:

The Indiana Republican central committee on Tuesday selected Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb as the party's candidate for governor.

Holcomb sought the top job after Pence was nominated as Donald Trump's running mate.

Here is a profile of Holcomb written when he became lieutenant governor in March.

EARLIER: Eric Holcomb became Indiana's 51st lieutenant governor during a crowded swearing-in ceremony at the Statehouse.

"From our urban to rural settings, Indiana has it all. I’m eager to spread the good word far and wide," he said during his first speech as a public office holder. "These are in fact the very roles that drew me to this position when Gov. Pence offered me a job I never sought."

Holcomb is a longtime Republican political operative, a former top aide to U.S. Sen. Dan Coats and former Gov. Mitch Daniels, and a past Indiana Republican Party chairman. He was in the midst of an uphill primary battle to replace Coats when Gov. Mike Pence tapped him to become lieutenant governor.

"With great respect to all his predecessors," Pence said in introducing Holcomb to an atrium full of lawmakers and others. "I say with conviction: I believe Eric Holcomb may be the best prepared person to ever assume the duties of lieutenant governor of the state of Indiana."

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Political observers say Holcomb is well positioned to help Pence unite the Republican party behind him. The governor's hard line stance on social issues has alienated some in the Daniels wing of the party who believe fiscal and business issues should be the focus. Holcomb is well-connected in those circles, having managed Daniels' 2008 campaign.

Others from Daniels' inner circle played prominent roles in the swearing-in ceremony. Former Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman was the event's master of ceremonies and Supreme Court Justice Mark Massa, once general counsel to Daniels, administered the oath.

Earlier in the day, the Indiana General Assembly confirmed Holcomb's selection with a unanimous vote in the Senate and a 91-3 vote in the House.

He replaces Sue Ellspermann, who made the unusual decision to leave the Pence administration in the middle of his re-election campaign to pursue a job as president of Ivy Tech Community College.

PREVIOUSLY: Here's an in-depth profile of Holcomb published earlier this year.

As Gov. Mike Pence prepared to debate Democrat John Gregg during his 2012 campaign, he needed a sparring partner who could effectively pose as his opponent in debate practice.

It had to be someone who knew Gregg intimately, who could recite his policy positions and voting record from memory, who could even imitate his mannerisms and down-home vernacular.

Pence chose Eric Holcomb.

Now, facing a rematch with John Gregg after a surprisingly narrow victory four years ago, Pence is turning to the longtime Republican operative once again – this time to be his running mate and Indiana’s next lieutenant governor.

Pence’s decision to tap Holcomb last week suggests that he sees a tough re-election campaign ahead.

Despite bruising battles over same-sex marriage, a religious freedom law and gay rights, Pence has resisted a departure from his long-held conservative positions on those issues. The result: A divided Republican Party and a rare opening for Democrats in a red state.

To win, Pence will have to unite the GOP behind him and fend off body blows from Gregg and his national allies, who smell blood in the water. It’s not the same kind of campaign Pence ran four years ago, when Gregg launched few direct attacks and Pence had broad GOP support.

This one will be much fiercer. And Pence can’t afford to have disaffected Republicans who are angry with him about social issues stay home on Election Day.

In Holcomb, Pence has a running mate who cut his political teeth as a socially conservative brawler in rural Knox County – Gregg’s home turf. He parlayed those conservative credentials to build a strong statewide network of party activists and become a kind of consensus-builder in chief for former Gov. Mitch Daniels.

Now, Pence’s team is hoping he can do much the same for the governor, who is likely to need both a political pit bull and someone who can unite Republicans behind him.

Holcomb seems well equipped to tackle the first task. The question is whether he – or anyone – can corral a Republican Party so fractured at both the state and national levels.

Conservative crusader

Holcomb, 47, earned his political stripes working for former U.S. Rep. John Hostettler, one of the nation’s most conservative congressmen.

The job proved a good training ground for political combat.

The district was known as the “Bloody Eighth” because of the nasty nature of its races. Hostettler made things even tougher because he refused to accept contributions from political action committees, forcing his team to rely on grassroots campaigning.

“He was always handicapped because he was financially the underdog,” said state Sen. Jim Banks, who also worked for Hostettler. “It was a very interesting place to learn about politics. Every two years was a tough fight.”

Hostettler managed to hold the office for 12 consecutive years – longer than anyone since the 1930s.

Banks credited Holcomb for much of Hostettler’s success.

“Eric and I probably drove in a car together for tens of thousands of miles, crisscrossing the rural communities,” he said. “I remember how Eric could talk to anybody. We would stop at diners and truck stops. He could connect with regular people… He was very instrumental to (Hostettler’s) organization.”

Taking the gloves off

In 2000, while still working for Hostettler, Holcomb took a shot at elected office himself.

In the final days of the campaign for state representative, Holcomb published an ad in several local newspapers accusing his opponent, Democratic incumbent John Frenz, of supporting bestiality and obscene photographs of children. The basis for the accusation: Frenz had voted to fund the Kinsey Institute, which the ad described as “the largest library of pornography of its kind in the world.”

What Frenz had actually supported was merely the state budget bill, which included routine funding for Indiana University, home to the Kinsey Institute, a sex research center.

The ad was so outrageous it got written up in the Wall Street Journal.  Holcomb lost the election.

Frenz, a restaurant owner who lost a subsequent election, said that if Pence is looking for a hatchet man, he has one in Holcomb.

“If that’s what the role is, he’ll definitely be able to fill that,” he said.

When asked about the advertisement today, Holcomb says he doesn’t spend time “looking in the rearview mirror.” So can we expect similar tactics in the Pence-Gregg campaign?

Holcomb says no.

“The point of that, to me at the time, was we were drowning in a sea of red ink and I didn’t think we had the money to be spending on a lot of things, including that,” he said. “Now, having said that, it was a poor way of making that point. I recognize that, and learned from that, and have not taken that approach since.”

Holcomb said his focus will be on the job — not the politics. Sometimes, though, the two are related.

“I understand that to promote and pass good policy, there’s some politics involved in it and if you don’t win, then you’re not advancing your cause,” he said. “I would assume I’d be called upon to help set the record straight and compare and contrast records.”

And Holcomb knows Gregg’s record well.

“Knox County is kind of a friendly place,” he said. “I would see him around town and at different events and functions and just got to know him over the years as a friend.”

As political director for Daniels, Holcomb helped to build a sharp contrast between Daniels' message of strong fiscal management and the state’s current direction. That required a close study of Gregg’s tenure as House speaker, Holcomb said.

“I got to know substantively and statistically where the state was at and where it was going,” he said. “A lot of that was on his watch and he was speaker of the House from the county I lived in.”

His familiarity with Gregg would later lead to his role as the mustachioed Democrat’s stand-in during Pence’s debate prep.

When asked for his best Gregg imitation, Holcomb laughed.

“We’d have to go down to the Blue Jay Junction and order a catfish sandwich and some sweet tea and then I could really slip into it,” he said. “And I’d have to grow some facial hair.”

Consensus builder

Despite Holcomb’s conservative roots, he’s shown an ability to work across the political spectrum — a versatility that has eluded Pence.

Pence lost the confidence – if not the support – of many business-oriented Republicans last year when he signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Social conservatives cheered the law, but prominent members of the business community feared an economic backlash amid concerns that RFRA could be used to justify discrimination against gays and lesbians. Pence’s effort to defend the law on national TV failed to reassure critics, making the problem even worse. His approval ratings tanked and his unwillingness to back an expansion of the state’s civil rights law to protect LGBT Hoosiers last month further angered some.

Unlike Pence, Holcomb has been able to straddle the social divide.

Take for example his relationship with two Republicans on opposite sides of the culture war — socially conservative lobbyist Curt Smith and gay rights advocate Bill Oesterle.

Smith, who hired him to work for Hostettler and who now leads the Indiana Family Institute, which opposes gay rights, said he considers Holcomb a strong and loyal conservative.

Former Angie’s List CEO Oesterle, meanwhile, had set up a super PAC to back Holcomb’s recently-abandoned U.S. Senate run, calling him the only candidate in the race who was supportive of LGBT rights.

It’s a balancing act he perfected while working for Daniels, where he was tasked with building coalitions around the governor’s priorities.

When Daniels wanted to lease the Indiana Toll Road and use the money to build new highways, Holcomb sought support from the building trades. When Daniels wanted to introduce a cap on property tax increases, Holcomb worked with neighborhood associations across the state.

“With some of these organizations, we didn’t always agree on 10 out of 10 things,” Holcomb said. “But we saw fit to address the ones we did agree on.”

More recently, he continued to cultivate those deep relationships with party activists across the state as chairman of the Indiana Republican Party. Most active Republicans know him. And they usually like him.

“I think he brings, perhaps, a link to the Daniels administration,” Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma said.

“I think what I bring," Holcomb said, "is I’ve been out on the road for much of the last decade, so I bring a lot of cultivated relationships. I’ve got relationships I can add to the equation that are based on work – not on campaigning, but on getting things done. So I bring that to compliment his Rolodex.”

The questions is: Can Holcomb be a coalition builder for a fairly unbendable governor?

Smith, the conservative lobbyist, thinks he can. He called Holcomb’s nomination “an inspired choice.”

“Eric knows a whole lot about John Gregg and is going to be a great campaigner for the governor and the ticket this fall,” he said. “He makes the campaign much more able to respond to John Gregg’s charges and challenges, which we all know are forthcoming… I think he boosts the odds of re-election significantly.”

Oesterle’s response, however, raises some doubts. The former Daniels campaign manager called Holcomb’s decision to team with Pence “the most severe case of professional betrayal that I’ve encountered in my career.”

“Unfortunately, Eric is returning to his roots. In the name of personal gain, Eric has cast his lot with the side of religious zealotry,” he said. “You can’t – in this environment – satisfy those disparate interests and he’s made his choice. I think it’s going to serve to heighten the divides in the party. There was no way this move is going to unite the party. It has the appearance of a gimmick.”

Unsurprisingly, Democrats criticized Holcomb’s nomination. The state party released a statement highlighting Holcomb’s conservatism with the headline, “Who Is Eric Holcomb? Spoiler Alert: A Mike Pence Clone.”

Ultimately, only time will tell what kind of impact Holcomb will have on Pence’s re-election bid, said Laura Albright, a political scientist at University of Indianapolis.

“I think he has the capacity and ability to serve as a uniter. Whether he can fulfill that role, we will have to wait and see.”

Call IndyStar reporter Tony Cook at (317) 444-6081. Follow him on Twitter: @indystartony.

Call IndyStar reporter Chelsea Schneider at (317) 444-6077. Follow her on Twitter: @indystarchelsea. 

Eric Holcomb

Age: 47

Residence: Northwestside of Indianapolis

Education: Bachelor's degree in U.S. history from Hanover College; Pike High School graduate

Military service: U.S. Navy veteran

Political experience: Dropped bid for GOP nomination for U.S. Senate last week as Gov. Mike Pence announced plans to nominate Holcomb as lieutenant governor; former state chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Dan Coats; former Indiana Republican Party chairman; held various positions in then-Gov. Mitch Daniels administration, including deputy chief of staff; manager of Daniels' 2008 re-election campaign; managed campaigns for former U.S. Rep. John Hostettler.

Family: Wife Janet

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