Ethan Hatcher Joins!

Nigel (0:01)

Hammer and Nigel.

Greg Ballard (0:02)

You believe these characters are weird of us?

Nigel (0:06)

Yes, ladies and gentlemen.

Jason Hammer (0:08)

Let's go, let's go.

Nigel (0:09)

My name is Nigel Jason Hammer is here. The Hammer Nigel Road Show live out of Coaches Tavern, downtown Indianapolis on Pennsylvania Caddy Corner from the Field House. My name is Nigel Jason Hammer right over there with a very special guest here on stage at Coaches Tavern.

Jason Hammer (0:28)

Your host of Saturday Night On The Circle, Indy's own Ethan Hatcher.

Bo Bayh (0:35)

How are you, my friend?

Ethan Hatcher (0:36)

Thanks for having me on the show, gentlemen, the glorious WIBC afternoon team. Pleasure to be with you.

Jason Hammer (0:42)

Anytime we go on the road, we like to pull a full Hank Williams Jr. and bring all of our rowdy friends. Right? In terms of rowdy, we got the coupon lady here, my better half. There she is. We got Nigel's old man's here. We got the ash holes here.

Some of our sales team members have sauntered in here. We got Travis and Kelly and Ethan Hatcher, Indie resident, and we're going to talk some Indie stuff here in just a moment. But I think the biggest story in the Indie political landscape is that Secretary of State debate last night. I'm going to play you a couple pieces of audio. Okay. I want your reaction.

This is Max Engeling last night on the important changes that he'll prioritize.

Max Engeling (1:27)

The first thing that we would do as it relates to benefiting and changing the office would be to institute a transparency portal. I think transparency is very important, and Hoosiers want to see an office that they can trust that they have confidence in that office. But they also want to know that if they see challenges, issues at the county level in their local elections, that they can submit that information directly to the Secretary of State's office. So we will be instituting Eyes On Elections, a transparency portal, so you, if you see a challenge, a conflict of interest, any issues around elections, you can submit that directly to the Secretary of State's office, so we could further investigate that exact issue and you know that you are heard.

Nigel (2:08)

Well, that sounds like something everybody can get behind.

Ethan Hatcher (2:12)

Fantastic. I have no problem with the transparency portal, transparency regarding elections, transparency regarding the business approval process, transparency regarding the Secretary of State's contracts process, but I would also like to see some transparency regarding the corruption that has gone on in the Secretary of State's office up to this point under the overview of Dirty Diego Morales, but I don't think that Max Dingeling is up to the challenge there.

Jason Hammer (2:39)

Oh, so you're not a Max guy.

Ethan Hatcher (2:41)

No, no, no, no, no.

Jason Hammer (2:42)

Why not?

Ethan Hatcher (2:44)

Because he is looking the other way for the corruption that has gone on the office. You heard him from the stage say that he is happy to wait for the Inspector General. Well, like, look, the Inspector General can inspect right now. There's nothing that's stopping him. It's the Republican Party that is collectively looking the other way. So unfortunately, a vote for Max Dingeling is a vote for Dirty Diego Morales because he will let the corruption slide and Diego will get away with it all.

Nigel (3:09)

Seems like Diego was on the ballot. You would assume that Diego was on the ballot last night watching that debate.

Jason Hammer (3:15)

That's all Bo wanted to talk about.

Ethan Hatcher (3:17)

It is a referendum on the corruption that has happened in the Secretary of State's office. The Republicans have completely blundered this because they have looked the other way and tacitly permitted and participated in the abuse of power that has gone on this entire time.

The out of country trips, the taxpayer expense vehicles, the contracts, the no-bid contracts to family members, etc. The list goes on and right now, he is abusing the office by specifically responding to Bo Baj's ad on the Secretary of State's website. That is a misuse of state resources.

Nigel (3:52)

Interesting. Yeah.

Jason Hammer (3:53)

All right. So let's get into Bo Baj. One of his ideas last night, and again, this is nothing that he has the power to do, which is what Bo Baj does.

But he mentioned that he would like to work with people to eliminate straight ticket voting.

Bo Bayh (4:10)

We have to end straight ticket voting here in Indiana. It's bad policy to have people succeeding, not on their individual merits, but based only on their party affiliation. That doesn't make sense. We ought to have people succeeding to these very important offices because of the right person for the job, not because they're wearing the right color jerseys. We have to end straight ticket voting that makes our elections more competitive, that also holds our politicians more accountable because there are repercussions for bad acts at the ballot box.