By Thomas Samuel
TheStatehouseFile.com

This is the third in a series of articles about the candidates running for governor. The first, profiling Democrat Dr. Woody Myers, was published Wednesday, and the second, about Gov. Eric Holcomb, was published Thursday.

INDIANAPOLIS—Libertarian Donald Rainwater might have remained a little-known third-party candidate for governor if not for one issue—Gov. Eric Holcomb’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the most vocal opponent of the governor’s pandemic policies, Rainwater has received support from some Indiana Republicans who say the mask mandate as well as the shutdown of all, but essential businesses and activities are overreaches by the government.

“He has the same commitment to the constitutional principles of limited government and individual liberties that I do and has earned my vote,” said Rep. Jim Lucas, a Republican from Seymour who has criticized Holcomb for acting unilaterally since the start of the pandemic in March.

How much that kind of support will takes votes from the incumbent is unclear, but Rainwater could exceed the three percent of the vote that Rex Bell, the Libertarian gubernatorial candidate in 2016, received. Right now, one poll conducted for the Ready Education Network had Rainwater pulling 15% of the vote to 47% for Holcomb and 29% for Myers, the Indianapolis Business Journal reported.

Laura Wilson, assistant professor of political science at the University of Indianapolis, said Rainwater “has many challenges as far as money and campaigning and marketing outreach. He focused on taking votes from Holcomb in the last debate, but it is still an uphill battle.”

Wilson said the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed more than 4,000 Hoosier lives, and the Black Lives Matter movement force the public to think more about what government should be involved in and whether the two main parties are doing what’s best for the state.

“The beauty of having a third-party candidate is it makes voters look into them and do their research,” Wilson said.

Still, COVID-19 has dominated much of the election, eclipsing other important issues like education, she added.

While Holcomb is staying the course with keeping businesses open but requiring masks and social distancing, the Democratic challenger, Dr. Woody Myers, is arguing for tougher measures to control the spread of the contagious novel coronavirus.

Rainwater has staked a position to the right of Holcomb, saying, “Only you can determine what risk you’re willing to take and what are the appropriate measures that you need to take for yourself, family, business, church or any other situation.”

When Holcomb has pointed to the state’s strong job growth in the recovery from the initial downturn early in the pandemic, Rainwater said that the economy slumped, and people lost jobs in the first place because the governor shut down all but the most essential businesses.

“I will never again say, some Hoosiers are essential, some are not, some jobs are essential, some are not,” Rainwater said in one of the debates.

Rainwater, who is married with three children and six grandchildren, is a lifelong Hoosier, graduating from Warren Central High School on the eastside of Indianapolis in 1981. He served in the Navy for eight years and then taught computer courses and managed small businesses before moving into software engineering where he also focused on information technology management.

His campaign is underfunded compared to the more than $3 million Holcomb has left in his campaign account, but has nearly $120,000 cash on hand compared to Myers, who has a little more than $37,000 left.

Rainwater had two large donors—William O. Perkins III of Houston, Texas, who contributed a total of $150,000, and Chris Rufus of Woodland, California, who gave him a total of $25,000. Perkins is described in some news accounts as a hedge fund manager and a high stakes poker player worth more than $50 million.

In the second gubernatorial debate Rainwater said, “I believe that you, the citizens of the state of Indiana, empower government, and not the other way around.”

Rainwater reiterated his belief in local control and said the government shouldn’t be telling people what to do but people should be telling government officials and policymakers what they want of the elected officials.

One of the issues where local control is important is in education and Rainwater has asked a teacher, Dawn Wooten, to serve as his appointed secretary of education if he is elected.

Wooten said Rainwater’s opposition to standardized testing and his commitment to cut the bureaucracy at the Indiana Department of Education are why she agreed to become his secretary of education if he is elected. The elected superintendent of public instruction post was changed by the General Assembly to an appointed one beginning in 2021.

Standardized testing has not given us the information we require to make good decisions about what students and school districts need, Wooten said, adding, “It leads to teaching to a test and students are not receiving a comprehensive education.”

Wooten acknowledged that the argument against standardized testing is the loss of federal funds, but she notes that money amounts to nine percent of the budget.

“There are plenty of places that we can cut or allocate funds to replace that nine percent,” she said.

Rainwater also supports school choice and both he and Wooten have said that the money should follow the students, whether it’s public, private, virtual, charter or home schools.

Wooten stated that Rainwater’s positions on constitutional carry, which means that people would be allowed to carry a firearm without a permit, limited government, and abolishing property and individual income taxes are also what drew her away from the Republican Party and to the Libertarian candidate.

“If we’re continuing to pay property taxes we don’t really own our homes,” Wooten said. “And the government can come to take it because we didn’t pay a tax bill, then we didn’t really own the home in the first place.”

Rainwater also supports fewer government regulations for Hoosiers, saying the state needs to leave many policy issues up to the local government to directly meet the needs of people.

The one issue where he breaks with the belief that people should make decisions about their lives for themselves is abortion. He said that he would sign an abortion ban into law, though he would exclude women whose lives were at risk or who were sexually assaulted.

Rainwater also said he would push for legalizing marijuana and allow the constitutional carry of firearms.

FOOTNOTE: Thomas Samuel is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.