U.S. Rep. Brad Ellsworth, the Democratic nominee for Senate, took another swipe at his Republican opponent today, saying it is “hypocritical” to back job creation now while having worked for a firm that lobbied against a provision to keep jobs in the U.S.

Ellsworth, at an Indianapolis news conference, defended his vote for the federal stimulus package, a vote that has come under attack by former Sen. Dan Coats, the GOP nominee for Senate.

“Our economy was going off the end of a cliff without a parachute,” Ellsworth said. “In an emergency sometimes you have to take drastic measures, and I think that’s what we did with the stimulus plan.”
The goal, he said, “was about American jobs, and saving our economy and keeping those jobs here, as many as possible.”

But, he said, the firm for which Coats’ worked as a lobbyist before entering the Senate race, King & Spalding, lobbied for a Russian-Swedish steel firm which tried to block a “Buy American” provision which was successfully put into the bill. The provision, co-authored by Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Indiana, required projects using stimulus funds be made with American-made goods and workers whenever possible.

“To take a paycheck and fight against that when you’re out on the campaign trail saying we need to repatriotize jobs is disingenuous and it’s hypocrical,” Ellsworth said.
“...The fact that King & Spalding, the lobbying firm, were hired to fight against that provision, I think it’s unpatriotic and I think that draws the line between what is right for the American people and American jobs and who’s lining the pockets.”

Pete Seat, a spokesman for Coats, said Coats had no involvement in lobbying on that issue.

Ellsworth said that answer isn’t good enough.

“When you take your paycheck from the collective group of what comes into the firm, you’re just as culpable in that. The profits come from who is paying the bills,” he said.
“... How do you trust a person that says one thing and then is paid to say the exact opposite, and then wants to move back to Indiana to represent you? How do you know what you’re going to get? You may not agree with everything I say. You may not agree with my votes, but I’ll be able to explain why I voted and it won’t be because somebody paid me and lined my pocket.”

Seat fired back that “Hoosiers are ready for a check-and balance against the extreme left-wing policies of Obama, (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi and Ellsworth that have increased our debt, perpetuated near double-digit unemployment and instilled an overwhelming sense of uncertainty into an already fragile marketplace.”

Unlike most who enter politics, Brad Ellsworth didn’t get his first taste studying political science in college, working on a campaign or idolizing presidential heroes.

He wanted a bulletproof vest.

As a young deputy on the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Department during the mid-1980s, Ellsworth watched as a debate unfolded on the County Council between Democrats who wanted to spend $40,000 to equip officers with vests and Republicans who opposed the idea.

“When I got on the department, I had that swear-off-politics attitude,” Ellsworth said. “But these councilmen were willing to protect us, and that’s how I got involved, supporting them.”
Since that baptism as a Democrat, Ellsworth has risen quickly through the political ranks.

In 1998, he won his first of two terms as Vanderburgh County sheriff before successfully running for Congress in 2006.

Now, in his second term in the U.S. House, Ellsworth is out to climb the political ladder again—this time vying with Republican Dan Coats for the U.S. Senate seat soon to be vacated by Democrat Evan Bayh.

As Ellsworth, 51, is engaged in a battle for one of the country’s elite political jobs, he’s also in the midst of an internal struggle.

Running for the job forces Ellsworth to go against his nature.

He’s an introvert who’s not comfortable talking about himself, a challenge when candidates need to tout their strengths.

Just as problematic: He loathes publicly criticizing others, a hurdle when today’s political environment practically demands attack ads and sharp tongues.

“You won’t hear him talk about his accomplishments, but I think he has to do that,” said Vanderburgh County Sheriff Eric Williams, a close friend who succeeded Ellsworth as sheriff and worked with him for almost two decades.

“It’s not easy for him, but when you’re campaigning for U.S. Senate, it’s time to brag and talk about your strengths for the job.”

Frugal and shy

Ellsworth has lived in the southwestern toe of Indiana his entire life.

He was born in Jasper and lived in Huntingburg until he was 9 years old, when his family moved to Evansville, where he has lived ever since.

Growing up, Ellsworth says, “if we were poor, I didn’t know it, but looking back now, I can say it was a struggle.”

Every Sunday in Huntingburg, his parents, Jim and Margaret, would pile him, his two older brothers, Joe and Eric, and his older sister, Lisa, into their ‘53 Ford and drive to church.

“You could see the road through the floorboard,” Ellsworth said. “And on the way home, we couldn’t take the most direct route, because there was this hill, and the car couldn’t make it up there.”

He grew up in a small, three-bedroom ranch home where he and his brothers shared a 9-foot-by-9-foot room that had just enough space for a bed, a bunk bed and a three-drawer dresser.

“Joe got the top drawer, Eric got the middle, and I got the bottom one.”

Butch Hancock, an Evansville car dealer, grew up next door.

“We used to run the neighborhood,” Hancock said with a Southern drawl. “Brad never, ever got mad. Never got in any fights. He was a real good buddy, always looking out for you.”

As long as he can remember, Ellsworth had a job.

He made extra cash as a kid by pulling a lawnmower behind his purple Schwinn Sting Ray bicycle, offering to cut neighbors’ lawns. His first real paycheck came at 15, working at a Super Slide, where he handed out burlap sacks and charged 10 cents a trip down the large plastic slides.

During high school, he bagged groceries at Wesselman’s Supermarket. He paid his way through college at Indiana State University-Evansville working at Sears, first on the loading dock and later as a salesman in the paint and hardware department.

“I got a 10 percent discount and would buy stuff out of the return bin,” said the frugal Ellsworth, who drives a 9-year-old Toyota Tundra pickup. “In fact, I still have my Sears circular saw, my orbital sander. I’d be a good Craftsman commercial.”

During college, Ellsworth lived at home with his parents. He studied sociology with an emphasis in criminal justice and joined the Sigma Tau Gamma fraternity.

It was at a frat party that he first danced with Beth Wannemueller. Soon after, he approached her in a student lounge.

“He was literally sweating bullets,” she recalled. “He’s really an introvert, so he was really shy, and it was probably the hardest thing he’d ever had to do in his whole life.”

Brad and Beth Ellsworth married in 1982 and had their only child, Andrea, four years later.

After graduating from college, Ellsworth applied for the Sheriff’s Department. He quickly rattles off the first day he wore the badge: April 10, 1982.

But a badge is all he had.

“They started me off working in the jail, but they didn’t have new uniforms yet,” Ellsworth said with a laugh. “But I had some brown corduroy pants and a tan shirt, and I thought that’s kind of close to the colors. So I just wore that.”

Proving himself

Ellsworth quickly rose through the ranks, including several years as an undercover narcotics detective. His uniform those days: jeans, a T-shirt, a mustache and a mullet.

“I worried about him the most when he was in narcotics, because honestly, he didn’t look the part,” Beth Ellsworth said. “He grew the mustache and looked as rough as he could, but I thought he was the last person who needed to be making drug buys.”

Ellsworth said he had to talk the sheriff into believing he wasn’t “too clean-cut” for the job.

His next assignment, to start the department’s DARE anti-drug program in schools, better suited his appearance—but he wasn’t happy about it.

“I was like, ‘Don’t do that to me,’ ” he said. “I’m in the most macho job in the world, having fun busting dope dealers, and they’re like, ‘We want you to go in schools and work with fifth-graders.’ “

That two-year stint, however, turned out to be one of the most rewarding jobs he’d ever had, Ellsworth said. It also paved the way for his political career.

A few years later, with then-Sheriff Ray Hamner’s second term about up, a group of deputies, tired of having Evansville police officers get elected to run their department, decided to put up their own candidate.

One of those deputies held a meeting in his basement to decide who that candidate should be, and they all looked toward Ellsworth, Williams said. They cited the fact he had held every rank in the department and his community work through DARE as chief reasons he should run.

“We all saw Brad as having the right demeanor, the right background, the right credentials, the skill set and the popularity to do it,” Williams said. “I think he wanted to do it, but we had to convince him to do it.”

Ellsworth was the underdog in the Democratic primary, which pitted him against then-Evansville Police Chief Art Gann, who was backed by Mayor Frank McDonald. Ellsworth won easily.

Longtime Vanderburgh County Republican Bettye Lou Jerrel says there’s an overwhelming reason why Ellsworth won—his looks.

Jerrel, who twice has chaired the county GOP but also was in charge of safety for Evansville schools, remembers when she first met Ellsworth. He was visiting the school district’s main office to discuss DARE.

“All those secretaries stopped, and they were all thinking, ‘My goodness. What a handsome young man,’ but there was no interest in what he was going to do. His appearance, without a doubt, is a great part of his success.”

The notion that some people consider his looks over his credentials always has irked Ellsworth, Williams said.

“When he was running for sheriff, there was an article in a local magazine, and the lady who wrote it said Brad had the hottest buns in law enforcement since Eric Estrada,” Williams said.

“Brad was beside himself upset with that because he constantly said, ‘I don’t want people to vote for me because they like the way I look. I want people to know I’m capable of doing these jobs.’ He’s proven that he’s very capable.”

That challenge would follow him to Congress, when as a freshman lawmaker The Hill newspaper named him the most beautiful person on Capitol Hill.

“It absolutely was the worst thing that ever happened. I want to be known as the hard worker, the guy who jumped in the ditch and did the work,” Ellsworth said. “That’s not a label I would have ever sought or been proud of.”

The sheriff

As sheriff, Ellsworth tackled the long-controversial topic of building a new jail.

Jerrel, a county commissioner at the time, said he did a solid job as sheriff and handled the jail project well.

To sell the new $34 million jail, Ellsworth opened up the old, crowded jail for tours twice a week so the public could see the 530 inmates crammed into a building with 263 beds.

“Building a jail is not a popular thing to take on, but Brad got it done,” Williams said. “He did a very good job of explaining to the public why it was necessary.”

But the most gut-wrenching issue Ellsworth had to tackle as sheriff involved Hamner, his predecessor and mentor.

Shortly after taking office, Ellsworth learned $60,000 was missing from a stash of money that undercover detectives used to buy drugs. He received a tip that it was Hamner who took the money, so he called his former boss, expecting him to laugh it off.

He didn’t.

Ellsworth called the county prosecutor and contacted the State Police to conduct an investigation. Hamner later admitted to taking the money and pleaded guilty. Ellsworth hasn’t spoken to him since.
Williams said the incident showed Ellsworth’s toughness as a leader.

“It was devastating, absolutely devastating,” Ellsworth said. “This was a friend, a mentor, a guy that gave me many opportunities on the department. It was horrible, but what are you going to do? The law is the law.”

Just two years into his time as sheriff, Ellsworth began receiving letters from party insiders, urging him to run against U.S. Rep. John Hostettler. Ellsworth threw the letters away.

But as the end of his second term as sheriff approached—Indiana law limits sheriffs to two consecutive terms—he slowly started to consider it. One evening during a walk around their five acres in Evansville, the Ellsworths decided to go for it.

Both admit they had no idea what they were getting into as a congressional candidate.

Ellsworth’s 2006 run against Hostettler drew national attention in a year when Democrats took control of the House from Republicans. That also meant millions of dollars spent on negative ads against Ellsworth.

“We were really naive to the process,” said Beth Ellsworth, who is a dental hygienist in Evansville. “It was baptism by fire, for sure.”

The congressman

Ellsworth would go on to defeat Hostettler handily, and in 2008, he cruised to re-election.

Earlier this year, when Bayh shockingly announced his retirement, party insiders immediately flocked to Ellsworth.

After wrestling with the decision for a few days, he and his wife decided he should run.

With the bid has come even more attention—and scrutiny.

Ellsworth remains on the conservative end of his party as a pro-gun, anti-abortion Democrat, but Republicans have worked aggressively to tie him to President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by highlighting his votes for health-care reform and the federal stimulus package.

But Ellsworth points out he voted against Obama’s cap-and-trade climate and energy legislation, even after the president called him personally to persuade him to do otherwise.

A voting analysis from Congressional Quarterly shows Ellsworth is one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress. In 2007 and 2009, he voted with his party 78 percent of the time, while the average Democrat did so 92 percent of the time. In 2008, he voted with Democrats 85 percent of the time, while the average also was 92 percent.

In those years, only a handful of Democrats voted with Republicans more often than Ellsworth.

“They say in the political ads that you’re this Pelosi lap dog,” he said, “but that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Ellsworth admits it’s uncomfortable for him to pat himself on the back during the campaign.

“Talking about himself is probably one of the hardest things for him, but it’s particularly hard for him to say something about an opponent,” Beth Ellsworth said. “It’s rare, and he has to be provoked.”

It happened last week, when Ellsworth lashed out at Coats over a television ad Ellsworth said distorted his record in Congress. But Ellsworth said he detests such confrontations.

“I want to formulate the policy in Washington,” he said. “I’d rather not have to go through the politics. I hate the politics.”

Ellsworth also has tried to shun Washington stereotypes.

He insisted that his campaign use a white SUV to travel the state, because a black one “is what a lot of folks do in Washington, and I think it looks really pretentious.”

When he first arrived in Washington, Capitol police would stop him because he rarely wears his congressional lapel pin.

“They recognize me now,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m proud of the job, but I think the pin calls attention to yourself, and that’s not what I’m there for.”

Beth Ellsworth said Congress keeps her husband away more, but he hasn’t changed much and is still a simple guy who enjoys simple things.

“He wants to go hang out at Lowe’s. He likes his lawn mower,” she said. “Going to Washington may have made him more worldly, but it’s also made him hang on more to what we have here.

“He’s not D.C. and never will be.”

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Both Republican Dan Coats and Democrat Brad Ellsworth oppose the President’s plan for an energy tax designed to reduce carbon emissions. Nevertheless, Cap and Trade is still an issue in the Indiana Senate race.

It’s because Brad Ellsworth wants Cap and Trade to be an issue, and that has little to do with energy policy.

Ellsworth campaigned at the state fair today highlighting his support for the Indiana coal industry and his opposition to Cap and Trade. But he also repeated a charge (made earlier by surrogates) against Dan Coats accusing him of lobbying for Cap and Trade.

“Past practice predicts future performance,” said Ellsworth. “I’ve said that before. People in Indiana have to look at our records and say that’s the person that’s gonna represent us honestly. You can’t go to Washington and say one thing and do one thing and come back to Indiana and tell Indian, I think Hoosiers are too smart for that.”

Senate records show that Coats lobbied for Julian Robertson, a hedge fund manager who supports Cap and Trade. Yet Coats says, “I did not lobby for cap and trade.”

In an appearance at a medical device manufacturer, however, he says he encouraged Robertson to seek alternatives.

“I made one call to Senator Lieberman and one call to Senator Warner because they had offered an alternative plan,” he said. “I said, ‘can you describe your plan and send me information because one of our clients is interested in looking at alternatives.’ That’s the extent of it.”

In the end it becomes a debate about his lobbying career.

“So, I think we need to know the truth from Mr. Coats, what it was,” says Ellsworth. “If you’re willing to compromise what you believe in for a paycheck, that’s not more of what we need in Washington, DC.”

Coats said, “This whole lobbying thing has been a mischaracterization and misinterpretation and, I think, deliberate falsification of what I’ve actually done.”

The campaign has suddenly taken on a new, more personal tone.

Meantime, look for Cap and Trade to be the subject of Ellsworth TV ads later in the campaign. For now, however, the Ellsworth ad campaign is off the air, suspended after six weeks, to preserve resources for later in the campaign.

Coats is still waiting to begin his ads for the fall campaign.

SOUTH BEND — U.S. Senate candidate Brad Ellsworth was clearly in his element Saturday during a campaign stop at the Fraternal Order of Police.

Chatting with officers during a firearms competition at the FOP shooting range southwest of the city, the two-term Democratic congressman from Evansville and former Vanderburgh County sheriff joked, “I saw this on the schedule and thought, ‘All right, I get to do something fun in politics for once!’æ”

Ellsworth said he doesn’t normally shoot in competitions, but he brought his pistols — a 9 mm Smith & Wesson and a .45-caliber Sig Sauer P220 — to fire some rounds with Capt. Mike Grzegorek, assistant commander of the St. Joseph County Metro Homicide Unit and the Democratic candidate for sheriff in this year’s election.

The congressman announced it had been a while since he fired a weapon, and he poked fun at himself for the few shots out of 36 that didn’t land in scoring range on the cardboard target bearing an outline of a human above the waist.

But he said it was a good feeling to be around police officers and share law-enforcement stories Saturday.

“It’s like getting back with a bunch of buddies you never met,” he said of the camaraderie among officers.

Ellsworth has been pushing his image as a former sheriff as he battles Republican and former Sen. Dan Coats for the seat Evan Bayh is leaving.

The banner across the top of his campaign website shows him leaning against a Vanderburgh County patrol car, and his press releases and televised campaign ads also stress his experience as a sheriff instead of his time in Washington.

Coats’ campaign and other Republicans have accused Ellsworth of overemphasizing his time as a sheriff to distract people from his record as a congressman.

Ellsworth said Saturday that he is proud of his entire résumé.

“I’m not shying away from my three and a half years in Congress,” he said. “I’m trying to introduce myself to people who want to know where I’ve come from.

“I was in law enforcement for 24 years and eight months, so that was most of my life before I went to Congress three and a half years ago.”

Ellsworth pointed out that his time as a sheriff and deputy is just about equal to the amount of time Coats has spent in Washington as a congressman, senator and lobbyist.

INDIANAPOLIS - U.S. Rep. Brad Ellsworth on Tuesday proposed changing how Washington does business, including one reform aimed directly at his Republican opponent for the U.S. Senate: a lifetime ban on lobbying by former members of Congress.

Throughout this campaign, Democrats have targeted the lobbying resume of Ellsworth’s Republican opponent, former Sen. Dan Coats. Coats, who like Ellsworth made a campaign stop in Indianapolis on Tuesday, joined a Washington law firm as a lobbyist after leaving the Senate in 1998 and again in 2005 after serving as ambassador to Germany.
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Ellsworth said Tuesday that the need to “put a wedge in that revolving door” between Congress and the lobbyists goes beyond Coats.

“I’ve seen it on both sides of the aisle,” Ellsworth said. “I hear people talk about what they might do when they’re done, (serving in Congress) and it’s wrong, and it influences their decisions.”

In recent years, Congress has tried to slow the jump from lawmaker to lobbyist, with the Senate adopting a two-year cooling-off period and the House a one-year ban.

“It’s just not long enough,” Ellsworth said.

Ellsworth, first elected to Congress in 2006, said he’s been there “just long enough to see how messed up it really is.”

At his Downtown news conference Tuesday, he also called for more disclosure of the meetings lawmakers have with lobbyists, banning staff from lobbying for six years, requiring members to put all their investments in blind trusts, more disclosure of Senate candidates’ personal financial information and changes to the Senate filibuster rules. Those included barring senators from secretly blocking legislation and lowering the number of senators it takes to break a filibuster to 55 from the current 60.

He also called for the Constitution to be amended to require a balanced federal budget with flexibility to allow for emergency spending but with spending cuts to lower the nation’s ballooning debt.

Coats, in town for a health-care round table discussion with doctors at St. Francis Hospital, did not personally respond to Ellsworth’s proposals but focused on what his campaign considers Ellsworth’s weak point: his vote for the health-care reforms enacted this year. Coats repeated his call for the health-care package to be replaced with other reforms.

Coats’ campaign spokesman, Pete Seat, said Coats welcomed Ellsworth’s call for a balanced federal budget. But, Seat said, Ellsworth’s words and votes in Congress don’t jibe.

“Ellsworth has rubber-stamped massive government spending sprees, leaving Hoosiers to pay the bill when many are without jobs,” Seat said.

“But in Indiana, just three months before the election, he’s a fiscal hawk committed to balancing a budget he has willingly allowed to reach unprecedented levels.”

Coats’ campaign simply ignored Ellsworth’s call for a lifetime ban on lobbying.

And Seat dismissed Ellsworth’s other reform proposals—particularly to make it easier to defeat a filibuster—saying that “this election is about getting America back on track and Hoosiers back to work, not trying to rewrite procedural rules to benefit an extreme liberal agenda.”

INDIANAPOLIS - A lifetime ban on lawmakers becoming lobbyists and a balanced budget amendment are among the reforms U.S. Rep. Brad Ellsworth, D-Ind., vows to pursue if Hoosiers elect him to the U.S. Senate.

The two-term Evansville congressman announced his Plan to Change the Way Washington Works at an Indianapolis event Tuesday. Ellsworth’s 10-point plan focuses on increasing government transparency, reducing government spending and fixing procedural issues that slow the legislative process.

“Too many times, the people in Washington, D.C., from both parties, put other peoples’ interests—special interests—in front of their own and in front of the people back home,” Ellsworth said. “There are ways that we can restore the public’s confidence in their elected officials, and that’s what we have to start doing.”

One of Ellsworth’s proposals would prohibit U.S. senators from working as a lobbyist after leaving office. Current senators must wait two years before they can lobby their former colleagues.

“So many times that’s what people intend to do, as opposed to public service, and why people go to Washington, or any elected official, they use that to trampoline or to bounce in to a more lucrative job,” Ellsworth said.

Former U.S. Sen. Dan Coats, Ellsworth’s Republican opponent, worked as a lobbyist after leaving the Senate in 1999 and again after serving four years as U.S. ambassador to Germany. Ellsworth told reporters Tuesday that he would never work as a lobbyist.

Other Ellsworth reform proposals were big on ideas but short on specifics.

For example, Ellsworth said he would support a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget but would not identify specific programs or services he’d cut right now to eliminate the estimated $1.35 trillion shortfall for 2010. He said the amendment would allow government spending to exceed revenue during “emergencies,” which he did not define.

Ellsworth also wants to reduce the number of senators required to end a filibuster from 60 to 55. However, changing that rule requires getting 60 votes to end debate on the rule. Neither political party currently controls that many seats in the Senate, nor is likely to after the fall elections.

U.S. Rep. Brad Ellsworth, the Democrat hoping to replace outgoing Sen. Evan Bayh, says elected officials need to take a team approach to making Gary an attractive place for new businesses to open their doors.

“That’s what’s going to bring the jobs back there,” Ellsworth said Friday in an interview.

The federal government might even need to invest in the city’s clean-up, he said, but while keeping an eye on the “federal pocketbook.”

“We need to make sure that that money is spent wisely,” Ellsworth said. “We have to make sure it goes to what it’s intended to.”

Bayh already lured Ron Sims, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, to Gary last year to see its crumbling infrastructure first-hand. But Gary’s bid to land HUD dollars for demolition failed.

Ellsworth said local, state and federal officials need to work together on Gary issues.

The two-term congressman from Evansville made his comments ahead of a weekend trip to Northwest Indiana. He plans to attend the Indiana Sheriff’s Association State Conference in Merrillville.

“I try to do that every year since I retired from the sheriff’s department,” Ellsworth said.

Ellsworth spent 25 years working for the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Department, eight of which he spent as the sheriff. The distinction is at the heart of the latest tiff between Ellsworth and his Republican opponent, former Sen. Dan Coats.

The Republicans attacked Ellsworth for running a television ad where he begins by talking about his “25 years as a sheriff.”

“Apparently he is trying to be clever by overstating the amount of time he served as the elected sheriff in hopes that it will fill in the four-year gap on his resume that he’s spent in Washington,” Indiana GOP Chairman Murray Clark said.

Ellsworth laughed off the attack Friday, saying, “if that’s their biggest gripe about me, I’m in pretty good shape.”

He said he didn’t intend to imply he had been sheriff for 25 years, something prohibited by Indiana’s term limits. But he said it’s not unusual for people to refer to deputy sheriffs as “the sheriff.”

However, Ellsworth took the opportunity to point out Coats’ own Washington resume, where the former senator spent time as a lobbyist and an ambassador under the Bush administration.

Coats visited Northwest Indiana this week as well, stopping by the Porter County Fair on Thursday.

“I plan to retire here,” Ellsworth said. “As you know, Sen. Coats moved back here in January to run for this office.”

Republicans have also complained about $12,000 in donations Ellsworth received between 2005 and 2007 from Rep. Charles Rangel, D-New York, who has been accused of violating House ethics rules and possibly breaking the law.

Ellsworth announced Friday evening he would donate that money to Indiana charities.

FORT WAYNE – Rep. Brad Ellsworth traveled to Fort Wayne on Tuesday in part to criticize his opponent’s past support of cap-and-trade legislation.

Ellsworth, a southern Indiana Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, spoke at Midwest Pipe and Steel Inc. about the importance of cheap energy to make Indiana a place for businesses to locate. He said the pollution-curbing bill in Congress would hurt the Hoosier economy.

Indiana coal production and use has helped provide affordable energy and good jobs to Hoosiers, Ellsworth said.

In comparison, Ellsworth said his Republican opponent, former Sen. Dan Coats, lobbied for the bill on behalf of a client. Coats previously was a lobbyist for Washington-based King & Spalding, and Ellsworth showed reports of Coats’ involvement in the cap-and-trade lobbying effort.

According to the lobbying reports, Coats’ firm was paid $480,000 for the work from June 2007 to September 2008.

“I believe it is disingenuous to rail against cap-and-trade on the campaign trail in Indiana but then to be paid to lobby for these policies when you’re in Washington,” Ellsworth said.

Pete Seat, spokesman for Coats, said by e-mail that the legislation passed the House under the urging of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom Ellsworth helped elect to her position.

Seat did not mention Coats’ lobbying history in his response.

“Dan opposes attempts to cap-and-tax energy, which would have a devastating effect on Hoosier businesses and cost thousands of jobs,” Seat wrote. “He has never advocated for these liberal job-killing policies and would vote against them as a United States senator.”

SOUTH BEND — U.S. Senate candidate Brad Ellsworth laid out the basics of his economic platform Wednesday during a quick campaign stop downtown.

Ellsworth, a two-term Democratic congressman from Evansville who is running against Republican Dan Coats for the seat Sen. Evan Bayh is leaving, said the government’s solution to high unemployment should not be to hire more government workers.

Instead, he said, lawmakers need to create a more stable atmosphere of tax and regulatory policies that give businesses confidence to invest, grow and hire people in the private sector.

Ellsworth said that means federal lawmakers should look at making some business tax incentives permanent.

“We do this thing in sometimes one- and two-year increments,” he told reporters outside the South Bend Chocolate Cafe. “But a business owner, when they’re thinking of buying a piece of equipment or million-dollar robot ... they expect it to run for 20, 30 years.”

Ellsworth has also introduced legislation as a congressman to expand the Regulatory Flexibility Act, which requires federal agencies to consider the impact proposed regulations would have on small businesses.

“A five-person shop, a beauty salon, doesn’t have the capability to hire accountants and lawyers to figure out all the red tape,” he said, “where a large (employer) — a GM, a Chrysler, a Ford plant — can do that.”

Ellsworth also defended recent votes in support of health care reform and an overhaul of financial regulations.

He said business owners asked him when he was running for Congress four years ago to address rising health care costs and the difficulties millions of people face in obtaining coverage. He said the new law isn’t perfect, and he would have liked to see reform come more incrementally, but “it’s a good first step.”

Regarding new financial regulations brought on by the subprime lending crisis, Ellsworth said he is confident the rules will target large financial firms that played a role in the meltdown without punishing community banks and credit unions.

“Our banks locally did not cause this problem and should not be punished,” he said. “I think, when it comes down, (local banks) will see there is enough differentiation that it won’t change their regulations that much.”

Coats’ campaign spokesman Pete Seat said Ellsworth’s call for tax and regulatory stability is “ironic,” considering Ellsworth supported legislation pushed by President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., that “has created so much economic uncertainty.”

“We need to reduce our debt and incentivize small business to hire, not continue enacting the massive Obama spending policies the incumbent congressman has dutifully supported,” Seat said.

Ellsworth stressed that he doesn’t always vote with his party. For example, he opposed fellow Democrats on cap-and-trade legislation, which proponents say is needed to slow climate change but others fear will cause energy prices to skyrocket.

“I thought cap and trade was wrong. I told the president of the United States that,” Ellsworth said. “He called me and asked for my vote. I told him ‘Absolutely not.’ It wasn’t right for my state and I won’t support it.”

Election Day is less than four months away, but many Indiana voters still don’t know much about Brad Ellsworth, the Democratic nominee for Senate.

That could change shortly, as he began airing his first campaign commercial Tuesday. It’s none too soon. As a congressman from Evansville, he could walk down the street in many parts of the state without being recognized.

But he’s not worried.

Four months is a lifetime in a political campaign, and with a rare open Senate seat at stake, there’s little doubt his race against former Sen. Dan Coats ultimately will receive gobs of attention.

“Absolutely not,” Ellsworth said Tuesday morning when I asked him if he was a household name. “But when the regular campaign starts up, when the TV ads start and we get out more during the (congressional) recesses, it will pick up.”

It’s been a strange race in many ways—from Sen. Evan Bayh’s last-minute decision not to run for a third term to Coats’ decision to come back to Indiana in the hopes of winning back his old seat. Now, it’s a dash to Election Day.

Tuesday, Ellsworth, whose face was sun-splashed from walking in Fourth of July parades, met with me to talk about the campaign.

He has taken on a tough task, running during a year in which Democrats likely will suffer a beating. He faces many voters still angry that he voted for the federal health-care bill, as well as ridiculous charges that he’s a liberal lapdog of national Democratic leaders.

In reality, he is probably the only candidate his party could have fielded this year, other than Bayh, who had a chance of winning the election. A moderate Democrat and former sheriff, Ellsworth is preaching a message that used to be common but isn’t heard enough in these ultra-partisan days.

“The problems that face this country do not have a D or an R attached to them, and neither party has a corner on the market of good ideas,” he said. “Guys like me—whatever you want to call me: a centrist, a moderate, a conservative Democrat—we want to be those guys who reach across the aisle.”

He continued:

“We can’t be head-butting all of the time. On issues like labor, education, the oil spill. Trying to blame a party? Give me a break. Let’s fix it.”

It’s probably fitting that this campaign has been truncated. It’s going to be a relatively simple one. Democrats will hammer Coats for being a D.C. lobbyist, and Republicans will attack Ellsworth for supporting health-care reform and other pieces of the Obama agenda.

It won’t be pretty.

As I’ve written before, that’s too bad. Because both candidates seem like decent, serious-minded men.

As for Ellsworth, he tells voters who are upset with the new health-care law that “it’s not a radical bill” and that, while flawed, it was a “step in the right direction” after decades of inaction. He voted against his party on “cap-and-trade” energy legislation and laughs at those who try to label him a liberal, pointing to positions on guns, abortion and other issues that led Republicans in D.C. to casually raise the prospect of him changing parties.

In recent weeks, Republicans have mocked Ellsworth for downplaying his time in Washington. He no doubt has. He knows his two terms as a sheriff play well. And despite four years in Congress, he insists he still tries to approach issues the way he did during nearly 25 years in law enforcement.

“When we got called, we didn’t ask if the person was rich or poor, white or black, or Republican or Democrat,” he said. “You just went out and tackled the problem. You looked for the common-sense approach to fix the issue.”

It’s a great campaign line. But it’s also a great philosophy.