Think About It with Michael Leppert

Political conventions are not for me. I went to my first one, at the state level, last month and I thought I was going to break out in a rash from what felt like life-threatening inefficiency. Of course, I oppose the existence of big graduations, weddings and funerals too, so maybe the problem is me.     I will begrudgingly admit that all of these ceremonies have a purpose. The Democratic National...

Indianapolis has had a bright spotlight on it in 2024. The Olympic swimming time trials in Lucas Oil Stadium, the NBA All-Star game, and the arrival of the biggest name in sports, Caitlin Clark. Now the city is ground zero for something shameful. Mayor Joe Hogsett is under fire for his mishandling of numerous sexual harassment allegations made against former Chief Deputy Mayor Thomas Cook. The fir...

The impact of even a provocative social media post doesn't often linger with me for long. In a presidential election year, even less so. But two of them struck me this week, neither of them mentioning Indiana politics, but to this Hoosier columnist, they feel entirely about us. The first post came from a politico named Mike Madrid on Friday. Madrid is a Latino campaign consultant, a former Republi...

I was in the airport two Sunday afternoons ago when I first saw the news that Joe Biden was ending his presidential campaign. I was still there when he followed up a few minutes later with his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. By the time I happily put my head on my own pillow that night after a long trip, anyone paying attention could already feel it coming. Everything about the 2024 p...

We had planned a trip to London and Paris in 2020, but it was cancelled by the pandemic. Until last week, we hadn't left the country since before that awful year. Ironically, the thought of visiting or even living someplace else has never taken up more space in my soul. Even my latest book is fundamentally about the mysterious "what ifs" that come from how life might be different if it were simply...

Thomas Matthew Crooks took his father's AR-15, climbed a building near former President Donald Trump's Saturday rally and got several shots off in Trump's direction before being killed by the U.S. Secret Service. The gun was purchased legally in Pennsylvania by Crooks' father. Early background reports indicate that the 20-year-old gunman was a loner, a registered Republican, but had also donated t...

As a new adjunct professor six years ago, the class I was asked to teach was titled "Public law and government relations." It was a class designed to teach how ideas become laws. The students were public affairs majors, just like I was, thirty years earlier. Explaining the "how" part is complicated. I'm forced to make hard choices on how to prioritize my lessons. I have learned to focus on two pri...

I have never met anyone who I believed to be intelligent who was also humorless. When comedian Nate Bargatze took the stage last week at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis he spent a few moments making sure the crowd knew he was not an educated man. Bargatze is intelligent though. And he's as funny they come. In contrast, the Supreme Court of the United States was once regarded as the sage, lea...

Life in Stephen King's Shawshank State Prison, at its best, is mundane, repetitive, and stagnant. As is the state of politics in Indiana. Surviving either or both, doesn't require lightning to strike. It requires hope. Hope that can lead to a movement. Democrats in Indiana nominated former Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jennifer McCormick as their nominee for governor in May's pr...

"Mike and Mike in the Morning" was the last sports radio show I ever regularly listened to. I don't remember why I stopped. I wasn't angry about some hot take or uncalled-for disrespect toward the Colts. I simply lost interest. Besides, I know enough about sports, according to me, and don't need anyone explaining why my team won or lost. And predictions? Everyone is terrible at them, that's why we...

Maya Angelou gave the best advice with absolutely the best words when she said, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time." I have found that people are really good at showing who they are, even when that's exactly what they are trying to avoid. Angelou reminds us of the obvious, to believe what we see, but importantly to not waste precious time reaching the often inevitabl...

The background noise in my house is the television show, "Law & Order." My wife and I both read more than we watch TV, so reruns that we aren't paying much attention to mask the noise from the city streets but don't distract us. We both have already seen every episode. So, when it's on, we race to declare, "he's the one who did it," or "they needed a search warrant for that." And after about the f...

I ate my track picnic at my kitchen counter this year. I don't know if I've ever done that before, so I'm writing it down for future reference. The fried chicken was as delicious as any other year, though it felt weird eating it over a plate. Every year, the Indianapolis 500 is our city's most special event. It's embedded in our culture, so grandly, so omnipresent, it's hard to find a person or a...

While writing on Sunday night about the truly remarkable week surrounding a criminal trial in New York, I was captivated by the final story on 60 Minutes . It was titled, "The Album," with Anderson Cooper reporting. The subject was an album of 116 photos discovered in 2007 that were collected by a Nazi leader at Auschwitz.  "Here There Are Blueberries," is the new Broadway play that attempts to ma...

If one wants to be a homer in Indianapolis, there's no better time of year for it than May. This year, the Pacers have rejuvenated their playoff rivalry with the Knicks, Caitlin Clark has come to town, and the Greatest Spectacle in Racing is almost here. And one more thing this May, the movie adaptation of John Green's 2017 novel, "Turtles All the Way Down," was released on Max. It's one of my fav...

French philosopher and statesman Joseph de Maistre is credited with saying it first: "Every country has the government it deserves." In America, we more often credit the sentiment to Thomas Jefferson, who specifically said, "The government you elect is the government you deserve." Ouch. Regardless of the version or the originator, it hurts more than usual on this Primary Election Day in Indiana. I...

When the news broke last year that heavy metal band, Judas Priest, was coming to town for an April concert I took charge and bought reserved seats up front. When I saw them first in 1984, metal bands didn't even sell reserved seats, we had to fight for them. That was part of the fun. I don't listen to metal much anymore, but I loudly have for the last month in prep for Sunday night's show. I've be...

It's more than math. I have had this conversation many times over the years with a variety of people, and I have been surprised by their surprise almost every time. Whichever party is drawing the maps of legislative districts, of any kind, they draw them to benefit themselves of course. That part is math, very basic math. In Indiana, Republicans in the Statehouse have drawn the last two maps that...

On Thursday, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita solicited the public to sue the Indiana Department of Health. I know that sounds odd, and it should sound that way, because it is odd. The IDOH is Rokita's client. When an agency is sued, it's customary for the attorney general to provide legal resources for its defense. Apparently not anymore. Not only should we expect Rokita to refuse to defend t...

Standing on the 17 th tee on Saturday, England's Lottie Woad was one shot behind American golfer, Bailey Shoemaker in the Augusta National Women's Amateur. Shoemaker had finished her bogey-free 66 about an hour earlier and was staying loose on the range in case anyone caught her, and a playoff became necessary. Woad coolly birdied 17 and 18 for the comeback victory. And when I say cool, I mean it....

In the 1987 film, "Wall Street," Gordon Gecko famously said, "If you're not inside, you are outside, okay." I was impressionable as a young undergraduate when I saw it in the theater that year. Since then, I have firmly believed decisions were only made by the people present in the exclusive room where the next important thing was going to happen. I still do. Whether the organization is in the wor...

Whenever I find myself baffled by a trend or even a specific decision in the traditional media world, I look to Jay Rosen for his perspective. Rosen is a former editor at the Chicago Tribune and a professor of journalism at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He's risen in prominence recently as a result of his "it's not the odds, it's the stakes" advice he has given the m...

Sigh. It's been a little while since the last time the former president went on a rant like the one on Saturday in Dayton, Ohio. It was awful enough to make headlines and to send his sycophants into damage control over what their idol actually meant. Context is the argument this time, something which Donald Trump has spent his life disconnected from. To help reconnect his actions to a coherent per...

It can be tough to be a minority of any kind. We talk about that toughness in cultural terms regularly in America. Whether it is a minority religion, gender or race, being outnumbered is rarely meaningless or easy. Senate Democrats in Indiana would love to be in that standard minority. Their minority isn't standard though, it's "super." Being in a simple minority would feel like a luxury, like upg...

When paying close attention to the things politicians actually say, there are moments when their true character unmistakably shines through. The memorable comments and quips are often material for statues and memorials. Successful politicians fight the urge to be blunt because of the historical danger bluntness brings. Thankfully, eventually most lose that challenging inner battle. Last Thursday,...