IPSE Asks: How Strong is Terry Burns' Stock Strength After Allegations of Margin Trading? Can Ron Gibson's Stock Provide Leverage In Democratic Nominee Battle?

OBSERVATIONS:  We're monitoring two stituations here. The first one concerns the allegation that Terry Burns author of the highly popular political blog Indianapolis Times (ITIM) is trading on the politcal margin. 

According to the chatter he was given (and apparently accepted) the option of having his slating fee of $6,000 delayed until after the primary.  Since  Democrats have a built-in advantage in Marion County we don't feel this will ultimately impact him in the general election but we do have some concerns when it comes to his stock value.

As everyone in politics knows one of the first talents that makes a successful candidate is their ability to raise money and when it comes to slating its also a measure of candidate committment to the cause and the Party.  Now we aren't suggesting that Terry doesn't have a committment to his party, however we are  perplexed that a well-known blogger like Terry - who knows no boundries when it comes to promoting his party's candidate or denigrating his opponents, doesn't have enough inside support to raise his own slating fee.  We will keep watch to see what the impact if any this will have on his role as loyal opposition to the GOP. Right now we feel we must lower his stock a bit.  Of the principal GOP elected/appointed positions to profit from this we finally settled on GBAL, not so much because he needed it but because we couldn't bring ourselves to increase the value of tweedle dee and tweedle dum.

The second item is dark horse democratic mayoral candidate Ron Gibson (RGIB) as he continues his under-the-radar campaign. With all that's going on here. It will be interesting to see how Melina Kennedy (MKEN) who appears to have the local Peterson Democratic machine and other big-hitters behind her will fare against the something-new kid Brian Williams (BWMS) who brings an energetic and new for Democrats. We feel that if Ron plays his cards right not only could influence who will ultimately be the Democratic candidate for Mayor in 2011, it just might be him. Don't laugh stranger things have happened.

We will watch these development closely to see how the two Titans negotiate with each other and more importantly how they negotiate with Ron.

ANALYSIS:

UP: RGIB $110; GBAL $145

DOWN:  ITIM $85