Larry Bucshon, a longtime incumbent and relatively mainstream conservative, at least for southwest Indiana, is retiring from Congress in a district (IN-08) with an R+36 partisan lean. 7 Republicans had already announced their candidacies when, Thursday, former Congressman John Hostettler announced that he wants back in. He had been eviscerated in 2006 by Blue Dog Brad Ellsworth— 61-39%. In 2010, Ellsworth was beaten by Bucshon. So… big circle.
I searched some DWT archives to see what I had written about the odious Hostettler in the past. The first mention I found was from 2005 when I introduced him as “one of the most extremist right-wingers in the U.S. Congress, who had just “worked himself up into a lather and a state of righteous indignation on the floor of the House about how Democrats persecute Christians! Although Hostettler has proven to be psychologically unstable, even deranged, in the past, this tactic is more venal and premeditated than loony. He claimed that 'like moths to a flame, Democrats can't help themselves when it comes to denigrating and demonizing Christians.'”
When he lost his seat, the 22-point margin was the largest margin of defeat for an incumbent in the 2006 cycle. He was the only incumbent in either party who did not receive 40% of the vote.
Yesterday, the Evansville Courier & Press reported that “Hostettler, 62, announced his surprise candidacy for the 2024 Republican congressional nomination late Thursday afternoon in a nearly eight-minute video stuffed with fiscal and foreign policy prescriptions. He flung political arrows at Democratic President Joe Biden's administration, drawing parallels between today and 1994, the year he was first elected to Congress as a critic of then-Democratic President Bill Clinton.”
Hostettler's campaign website contains no biography updating voters on what he's been doing since leaving Congress more than 17 years ago, but a 2022 Texas Public Policy Foundation bio calls him "former vice president of federal affairs for States Trust, a Foundation initiative promoting state-based solutions to restore the principle of federalism, holding up states as innovators of effective public policy."
Hostettler started the publishing company Publius House and founded the Constitution Institute, which held seminars throughout Indiana, teaching about the U.S. Constitution. He has written at least two books.
According to a biography of Hostettler that once appeared on his website, he had "accepted a position as director of the Center for Christian Statesmanship, an outreach of the late Dr. D. James Kennedy's organization Coral Ridge Ministries."
Hostettler did mount an energetic campaign for the 2010 Republican U.S. Senate nomination in Indiana, but he ultimately fell short.