The Clinton County Republican Party ventured to a new location for its annual Lincoln Day Dinner Thursday night at the 51 West Event Center in downtown Frankfort.
“We had, I think, 85 in attendance,” said Clinton County Republican Party Chairman Jim Moyer. “A week ago, we were only sitting at 40. We had a turnout, good venue and an excellent meal provided by the Angry Donkey.”
Several city, local and county officials attended as did State Senators Jim Buck and Brian Buchanan.
Guest speaker for the evening was State GOP Chairman Kyle Hupfer, who is a partner at Taft Law. In 2020, Hupfer served as campaign manager to Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb in his successful re-election campaign.
Hupfer said the next two years are important for Republicans.
“We need to re-elect Senator Todd Young and return our seven members of Congress to our super majority in the House and Senate,” said Hupfer. “Once we get through that, we’ll start looking at 2024. We’ll see who the candidates are nationally and we’ll see who the candidates are across the state. Then we’ll start putting our ground game together.”
Hupfer also said that Washington, D.C. is broken.
“It’s a real problematic time for Americans right now when you see what the Democrats in Washington, D.C. are trying to push forward,” said Hupfer. “It’s not what the vast majority of Americans want. It’s not what folks like Joe Biden ran on. They lied when they ran. They said they wouldn’t do things like ‘pack the courts’ and now they have a commission to talk about ‘pack the courts’. Democrats are our problem in Washington and in Indiana.”
Hupfer added the next big thing coming up will be redistricting.
“We’re hearing data may came in sometime between the early part of August and mid-September,” Hupfer said. “I think the Legislature will take it up pretty quickly after that. Hopefully, lines will be redrawn by Halloween. It depends on when the data comes in from the Census Bureau.”
Moyer says he is concerned about the fact there are no races locally this year.
“It’s a little bit different,” said Moyer. “It’s hard to get people out to parades when there’s no race to be working towards. There’s only one county fair and one Santa parade between now and the May primary in 2022.”
Moyer was asked about the theme for this year’s dinner.
“The message is if we don’t do something, this country is going to Hell in a hand basket,” he said. “We need to get out, get the votes to take control of one or both Houses in 2022 and forget about 2024. That will take care of itself.”