As part of our ongoing efforts to keep you connected to the campaign we’ve launched a Flickr page to keep you up to date with what the campaign is doing.  We’ve already started posting pictures of Luke and supporters at events and we’ll be post a lot more photos over the course of the campaign. 

Sign up to volunteer today by sending an e-mail with your contact information to Frank Fotia, our Field Director, and if you volunteer you just may see yourself with Luke on the Flickr page!

Rep. Joe Donnelly is a super-delegate who has not yet pledged his support to either of the two Democratic candidates currently viying for the nomination.  After the high-profile visit of the Clinton campaign to the 2nd District on Monday, Luke Puckett offered up an issues comparision of Donnelly’s positions compared to the positions of Senators Obama and Clinton.






Here are the results:

Although he brands himself as an independent Democrat, it looks like Rep. Donnelly has quite a bit in common with the liberals currently contending for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The Puckett campaign is launching its email efforts today!  Take a moment to head over here to sign up to receive the very latest campaign updates delivered directly to your inbox.  We’ll keep you abrest of the latest news, volunteer opportunities, and campaign stories.

The good folks over at the Circle City Pundit have decided to endorse Luke Puckett in his bid to become the 2nd district’s next Congressman.  This is the first official blog endorsement that the campaign has received and we sincerely appreciate it.

Here is part of the reason they’re endorsing Luke:

“…then I had the chance to meet Luke Puckett a few weeks back, and realized I was supporting the wrong guy (not to mention that Donnelly has turned out to be another of Pelosi’s robots), and so we are officially, for the first (and not likely the last) time doing a u-turn and switching our support to the “other guy”.

Certainly he [Puckett] brings enough depth to represent the people of the 2nd CD well, much better than Donnelly has.

We here at CircleCityPundit.com are proud to font formally endorse Luke Puckett.”

Thanks, guys.  Click here to read the rest of their post.

“Congressman Donnelly Opposes Democratic Budget” states the headline of the most recent press release from Rep. Joe Donnelly (D). To be strictly and technically accurate, that statement is true. In a roll call vote today Donnelly (and the two other Indiana Blue Dogs, Hill and Ellsworth) voted against HCR 312, the Democrat supported budget resolution for fiscal year 2009.

HCR 312, the Democratic budget resolution, is the largest tax increase ever. If enacted, taxes will rise by about $682 billion. The Heritage Foundation did a study of how those taxes would impact individual congressional districts both from a tax standpoint and from an economic standpoint. Tax increases have two affects, first, they directly take money from the taxpayer, second, they have economic costs like job losses and increased production costs which are passed along to the consumer in the form of higher prices.

In Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District, Rep. Donnelly’s district, the impact of the tax increase would be an additional $1,618 in taxes per taxpayer. Counting the economic costs would mean that individual taxpayers are out a total of $3,148 per capita as a result of the tax increase. It is also estimated that 2,111 jobs would be lost in the 2nd District as a result of the Democrats budget.

To look at the entire situation surrounding that dismal budget resolution, however, presents a slightly different picture. Rep. Donnelly and his fellow Blue Dogs have proclaimed themselves to be fiscal conservatives. At times they have cast conservative votes. There is a difference though between casting occasional conservative votes or even just conservative votes on key votes, while neglecting the overall series of actions that a true fiscal conservative would take.

On March 12 the House considered and voted on a resolution to consider HCR 312, the budget resolution. That March 12 resolution was not the budget resolution, but if it had been defeated it would have at least slowed down the passage of the actual budget resolution. On that roll call vote, Joe Donnelly, Baron Hill, and Brad Ellsworth joined their Democratic majority and voted to allow the House to consider the fiscal year 2009 budget resolution.

Here is why that vote was not a good vote: everyone who voted on that measure realized that even if they voted against the actual budget resolution, the tax raising unemployment generating budget resolution would pass because a Democratic majority controls the House. Therefore, if one was going to be wholly principled on the matter, he or she would have to vote against the initial resolution and the actual budget resolution.

Donnelly and his fellow “conservative” Democrats were only half-principled on this matter of the budget and it is disingenuous of them to portray themselves as advocates of the hard-working middle class American.

When Joe Donnelly and the House Democrats allowed important terrorist surveillance legislation to expire, they put the American people at risk and tied the hands of our national intelligence workers.  Without critical legal tools, the dedicated individuals at our national security agencies are helpless when it comes tracking and targeting new terrorist organizations.

The Puckett campaign has launched a petition drive to show Joe Donnelly that Americans want to be safe from terrorists and not susceptible to a sudden attack from a terrorist cell our government wasn’t allowed to do anything about.  Go here to read and sign the petition urging Joe Donnelly to do his job and protect the American people.