Indiana: We hate our state's private turnpike

Sept. 7, 2006 - Ken Blackwell, the man responsible for the idea of privatizing the Ohio Turnpike, keeps referring to how great the concept has gone over in Indiana.
Blackwell has even brought in Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels to heap praises on Blackwell's proposal.

The problem is that Indiana citizens think that privatizing their turnpike is a horrible idea and is creating a major threat to Daniel's popularity.

From the Indiana Star:
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060305/NEWS02/603050483

After pushing to change everything from Hoosiers' clocks to who runs their Toll Road, Gov. Mitch Daniels has seen his popularity plummet during his first year in office. . . His approval rating has dropped from 55 percent a few months after taking office to 37 percent in the most recent poll.

. . .

Hoosiers also disapprove of the biggest change Daniels has sought since becoming governor: the $3.85 billion lease of the Indiana Toll Road to an Australian-Spanish consortium to raise money for highway projects.
Only 30 percent of those polled say the lease is a good idea, while 60 percent said it's a bad idea.

. . .

[Mary] Kendall, the Fayette County voter, doesn't like leasing the Toll Road to foreign management and feels misled on time zones. She said she thought Daniels was going to put all of Indiana in the same time zone. Instead, federal officials decided 18 counties will now be on Central time with most of the state on Eastern, though all counties will observe daylight-saving time starting April 2.

"He might as well have left things the way they were," Kendall said.

. . .

Many Hoosiers seem to link the Toll Road deal with broader changes in the global economy that have hurt U.S. manufacturing. That concern has manifested itself in distrust, even hostility, toward foreign ownership.
Of the poll participants who said the Toll Road lease is a bad idea, nearly half (47 percent) said they oppose it mainly because of Macquarie-Cintra, the overseas consortium that wants to lease the road for 75 years.
Only 13 percent of opponents said their top concern was possible increases in Toll Road rates.

. . .

Dana Malott, a 36-year-old Republican from Lake County, staunchly opposes the Toll Road lease because she sees it as a sign of declining U.S.
ownership.

"I think this whole country is selling out," the poll respondent said.
"We're going to be a Third World country soon."

. . .

Dan Parker, chairman of the Indiana Democratic Party, said Daniels engineered the drop in poll numbers by focusing on daylight-saving time and a foreign lease of the Toll Road, rather than things Hoosiers care about, particularly education and jobs. And while Daniels has cast the Toll Road lease as "the jobs vote of a generation," Parker said the public isn't buying that.