Thanks today for ongoing sponsorship help from the Long Center for the Performing Arts, presenting Kenny G and the Miracles Holiday & Hits Tour 2023, Dec. 12. Get tickets here.
Thanks, also, to Purdue Musical Organizations and the Purdue Christmas Show. This December, gather the whole family and celebrate 90 years of the Purdue Christmas Show. For nearly a century, this beloved holiday tradition has captivated audiences with its dazzling performances and heartwarming messages of love, hope and unity. Watch the stage come alive in the historic Elliott Hall of Music as PMO’s incredible student talent perform beautiful secular and sacred music alongside a live orchestra. December 1-3. BUY TICKETS HERE.
Some notes for a gloomy Sunday …
JUST IN: PENCE PULLS THE PLUG: Mike Pence, former vice president and former Indiana governor, suspended his campaign for president during a Saturday in Las Vegas, acknowledging that he had an uphill battle to stay in the race. “It’s become clear to me it’s not my time,” Pence said. Here are some reads about the move.
Iowa Capital Dispatch reporter Robin Opsahl had this: “Former Vice President Mike Pence ends 2024 presidential bid.”
Tom LoBianco, who wrote a 2019 biography “Piety & Power: Mike Pence and the Taking of the White House,” wrote this for The Messenger: “Mike Pence: Right Man, Maybe. Wrong Time. Pence was doomed in today’s GOP by having stood for the Constitution and against Trump on Jan. 6,' said one political observer.”
Indiana-based reporter Adam Wren had been talking about the writing on the wall for a while now. Here’s what he wrote for Politico about the final straw: “It ended in Sin City. But Mike Pence’s campaign was DOA for months. Pence had focused on evangelical-rich Iowa as his path to the nomination. But he could never seem to draw a crowd.”
Wren, writing on his own Substack called Importantville, followed up with this Indiana take: “The Iowa caucuses: still the graveyard for Hoosier presidential candidates. Pence, like those Hoosiers before him, struggled to win over another friendly I-state.”
A BOILERMAKER RECAP: J&C reporter Sam King just came out and said it after Purdue lost Saturday, 31-14, on the road to a middling Nebraska team: “There's no sugarcoating it. Purdue is a bad football team.” Here’s King’s story.
ICYMI, THE DELPHI EDITION: Things took one turn after another last week in the case of Richard Allen, the former CVS clerk accused in the 2017 murders of Delphi eighth-graders Abby Williams and Libby German. On Friday alone, Judge Fran Gull essentially ordered the slate wiped clean on a series of motions from attorney Brad Rozzi, who contends that he never stepped down from the case – as the judge announced to a stunned courtroom Oct. 19 – and that Gull should recuse herself from the year-old case for trying to strong-arm the defense team and being biased heading toward a January trial date. An attorney for Rozzi and Andrew Baldwin, the other half of the initial defense team, answered that by saying Gull overstepped her bounds by getting rid of filings in the case and that the attorneys were still on the case. Meanwhile, Gull appointed a new defense team for Allen. All of which leads up to a hearing Tuesday morning in Delphi. Catch up here: “Attorneys vs. judge: Another round in Delphi murder case.”
TRICK OR TREAT: Just your annual reminder that there are no formal trick-or-treating times in Lafayette and West Lafayette. Be safe out there. Visit Lafayette-West Lafayette also has a roundup of some of the activities leading up to the big night of trick-or-treating.
MORE READS …
From Indiana Capital Chronicle reporter Casey Smith, a federal judge in Indianapolis last week dismissed an attempt by The Satanic Temple to block Indiana’s near-total abortion ban. Here’s the story.
Thanks, again, for ongoing sponsorship help from the Long Center for the Performing Arts, presenting Kenny G and the Miracles Holiday & Hits Tour 2023, Dec. 12. Get tickets here.
And thanks to Purdue Musical Organizations, celebrating 90 years of the Purdue Christmas Show, Dec. 1-3 in Elliott Hall of Music. Get tickets for one of the four performances here.
THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING BASED IN LAFAYETTE, AN INDEPENDENT, LOCAL REPORTING PROJECT. FREE AND FULL-RIDE SUBSCRIPTION OPTIONS ARE READY FOR YOU HERE.
Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.
Mike Pence's Halloween lesson: When you sell your soul, it's nearly impossible to buy it back.
Pence, who does not support the full rights of gay people, should never be in the highest office in the country anyway.