Republican Dan Coats made a stop in Fort Wayne today to talk about his concern over job recovery and to amp up support for his US Senate campaign.
Coats served as a US Senator for Indiana in the 1990s. He retired from public service about ten years ago, but his dislike about where the country is headed has him hoping to regain his old Senate seat. “This economic downturn and solution that this administration has come up with seemed to be so out of line, so liberal, so unachievable and in avoidance of what they ought to be doing, which is getting people back to work” says Coats.
Coats says he was greatly looking forward to going up against Senator Evan Bayh. “I wanted to battle, go head-to-head, toe-to-toe, eyeball-to-eyeball--let's discuss, let's put in front of the people the alternatives that are available” says Coats.
When asked what his reaction was after hearing that Bayh would be pulling out of the Senate race, Coats said: “The first 15-seconds I was in shock. I didn't know what to say. I had not anticipated this at all. I was like ‘whoa what we got here?’”
Since joining the Senate race, Coats has faced constant heat from his Democratic opponents. “There clearly was an attempt to keep me from getting into this race. They knew that we had to collect all the signatures. They knew there was a short amount of time and they fired a lot of guns out of Washington” Coats says.
Democrats have questioned his choice to live in Washington and work as a lobbyist. Coats says he worked as a lobbyist because the pay was good and provided security.He also says his ties to Indiana have remained intact since leaving Congress. “I've been on several boards here; I've been doing work for the state. I've done a number of things back here so, I think we've counted up the number of times I’ve been back and they're surprising sometimes ahead of some of the Representatives.”
