Republican has to convince voters that he's a Dem to win in the newly-blue Indiana

From the Tribune Star:

"William Treadway, chairman of the Vigo County Republican Party, was pleased with the overall voter turnout.

“I am very happy to have new candidates on the ballot, even though they were not victorious in their first time out, but it shows we have a lot of interest in the party,” Treadway said.

Treadway said winning the Vigo County prosecutor’s race was “monumental, the first time there has been a Republican prosecutor since Eric Abel. It shows once again that for two straight elections, in 2004 with Mike Morris on the County Council and now in 2006, with the prosecutor, that a Republican can win countywide.

“It is not a fluke. It is a fantastic thing to help build the party,” Treadway said.

The Democrat chairman said the election of a Republican in the prosecutor’s office does not suggest a break in the Democratic party in the county.

“I don’t believe having one Republican win suggests a fracture. There are different issues in each of the races. I think it indicates that voters took into consideration issues in that campaign and that is how they voted. If I look at the other races, the suggestion is the Democratic Party is alive and well and strong in Vigo County,” Etling said.

For those of you who weren't out in the community for the past month campaigning (the two chairs in this article, for example) it's important to note that Modesitt somehow convinced a lot of the Dems that he was one of them. As I made phone calls and talked to people door-to-door, straight party Dems would say, "You don't have to worry about me, I'm voting for Modesitt, Lewis, Ellsworth" and so on. These people had no idea that Modesitt was not a Dem. Modesitt, who was running for County Prosecutor here in Vigo County against Democrat Sarah Mullican, dropped off signs in Democratic communities and left newsletters on doorsteps with articles suggesting that he was not a Republican. Very sly.