Shabazz Commentary: Michigan and Mississippi restored my faith in humanity
By Abdul-Hakim Shabazz IndyPolitics.org November 13, 2026 I’ll admit it. Going into Election Night, my faith in humanity was running about as low as a Statehouse approval rating. Then Michigan and Mississippi happened. Let’s start up north. Michigan voters elected Abd “...”
Shabazz Commentary: My election post mortem
By Abdul-Hakim Shabazz IndyPolitics.org November 7, 2026 A central Indiana Republican lawmaker recently asked me how he lost his House seat to a Democrat. My answer: “Easy. More people voted for the other guy.” It’s the Occam’s razor of politics: sometimes the simplest ex “...”
Shabazz Commentary: I Hate to Say I Told You So, But…
By Abdul-Hakim Shabazz, Esq. IndyPolitics.org November 4, 2026 After getting home on election night and filing my stories, I decided to lie down and save the column for later. So I made my tea (Earl Grey, hot, for my fellow Trekkies) and put on some Gilbert & Sullivan to unwi “...”
Shabazz Commentary: Muslims Are the New “N-Words”
By Abdul-Hakim Shabazz, Esq. IndyPolitics.org October 29, 2026 I know what that headline just did to your blood pressure. Good. Take a Tums and keep reading. Nobody with a political future steps to a podium in 2026 and drops the actual N-word. Do that and you’ll lose your donor “...”
Shabazz Commentary: The Bi-Curious Voters and the Politicians Who Love Them
By Abdul-Hakim Shabazz IndyPolitics.org October 25, 2026 Okay, yes I freely admit, my Gen X is showing. That headline does read like a really bad episode of Springer, Ricki Lake or Sally Jessy. But let’s face it: it got your attention, like most of those 90s TV talk shows. So “...”
Shabazz Commentary: The Straw and the Camel’s Back
By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz IndyPolitics.org October 18, 2026 If Max Engling loses the Secretary of State’s race, that will be the straw that breaks the Bactrian camel’s back. And yes, I picked the two-humped camel on purpose. In this story the humps are the state party chair and “...”
Shabazz Commentary: In Praise of Boring
By Addul-Hakim Shabazz IndyPolitics.org October 14, 2026 I went to two candidate forums this week, and I have a confession. They were boring. Not boring in the stare-at-your-phone, scroll social media, count-the-ceiling-tiles sense. The candidates had plenty to say. They were bor “...”
Shabazz Commentary: The Ghosts of Elections Past
By Abdul-Hakim Shabazz, Esq. IndyPolitics.org October 7, 2026 This week I had a flashback, from the ghost of elections past. In 2002, I was working for Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan, who topped the Republican ticket as the nominee for governor. Also on that ballot was a subu “...”
Shabazz Commentary: Polling is art versus science versus reality
By Abdul-Hakim Shabazz IndyPolitics.org October 1, 2026 Every election cycle, someone emails me a poll with a subject line in ALL CAPS. The poll always shows their candidate winning. It’s always “brand new.” And, purely by coincidence, it’s almost always paid for by the c “...”
Shabazz Commentary: As God Is My Witness, I Thought Prices Could Fly
By Abdul-Hakim Shabazz, Esq. IndyPolitics.org September 27, 2026 I spent the weekend in Cincinnati, the town that gave us Charles Keating, Larry Flynt and WKRP. Keating spent a good part of his life trying to put guys like Flynt out of business, and WKRP spent one Thanksgiving le “...”