Andrew Steele Commentary: Primary ballot remains unsettled

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Updated: February 15, 2012 10:08AM

The campaign filing period for the May 8 primary came and went without the ballot being fully settled.

As difficult as it has been to see how someone other than Mitt Romney wins the Republican presidential nomination, “anyone other than Romney” seems to remain the wish of many GOP voters, and Rick Santorum seems to be the last hope for those folks.

Whether that race will last until May is up-in-the-air, but it’s also undetermined whether Santorum will even be on the ballot, because of problems with signatures on the petitions needed to get on the ballot.

This is one of those situations where the people in charge — the Indiana Elections Commission — need to do whatever they can to get Santorum on the ballot. This is a case that the spirit of the law — making sure only legitimate candidates get on the ballot — is the important thing, and technicalities shouldn’t get in the way.

In any case, the Republicans still have the U.S. Senate race, pitting incumbent Richard Lugar against Richard Mourdock.

My bet would be that the tea-party leaning folks will lose both — that Romney and Lugar will win — but if somehow these races heat up, they’d overshadow some interesting state and county races.

In south Lake County, the primary contest on the Democratic side for county commissioner, between incumbent Gerry Scheub and former sheriff Roy Dominguez, should be hard fought, but also could be one of those races that’s fought in a bubble most people don’t want to inspect.

And, it could lead to a rather boring election night. Intense campaigns don’t necessarily lead to tense election nights.

What might be more interesting is the district 11 state representative race on the Republican side, pitting county council member and longtime township trustee Rick Niemeyer against Eric Olson, who’s not held office but might pick up the “kick them all out,” tea-party type support.

The district is a new one, encompassing much of south Lake County and stretching along the Illinois state line north into St. John.

County-wide races break down like this:

Coroner Democrats: Daniel Bade, George Deliopolous, Darryl Fortson, Merrilee Frey, Lana Kaiser. Republican: Andy Koultourides

Recorder Democrats: Michelle Fajman, Mike Brown, Carolyn Jordan, Estela Ramirez-Montalvo, Andrew Sylwestrowicz. Republican: Pamela Dangmeister

Surveyor Democrats: George Van Til, John Garcia. Republicans: Eric Kreig, Peter Papageorgakis, Jason Reeves, Arthur Santos Sr.

These people (outside of George Van Til, probably) have a lot of campaigning to do. But they’re campaigning for offices that people don’t know much about, and won’t spend much time learning about.

They should be appointive, rather than elective. Everyone knows that, but no one will do anything about it.