By Abdul-Hakim Shabazz, Esq.
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 boring because nobody yelled. Nobody stormed off. Nobody called anybody a fascist, a communist or a RINO. Nobody held up a phone to film the other guy for the next fundraising email.
In 2026, that counts as man bites dog.
Think about what passes for political discourse these days. Last month, a City-County Council committee meeting turned into a shouting match. Social media rewards whoever can be nastiest in the fewest characters. And those of us in the media are not innocent bystanders. Fireworks get clicks. A polite forum, even one that fills the room, usually gets no coverage at all.
So let me give it some.
More than 100 people packed Marquette Senior Living on the north side to hear House District 86 Democratic incumbent Ed DeLaney and Republican challenger Glenn Bill. They split sharply on data centers. DeLaney wants legislation and state oversight to make sure the companies pay their full freight. Bill, a real estate guy, says the fears are overblown, landowners should be free to sell, and he can negotiate a better deal. They also differed on marijuana, wetlands and where judges should live. Then they agreed that white Christian nationalism has no place in politics, and they both backed the bail amendment.
In Lawrence, at a Lawrence Chamber event, Senate District 31 candidates Marion County Sheriff Kerry Forestal, a Democrat, and Dr. Juanita Albright, a Republican physician and Hamilton Southeastern school board member, went back and forth on SB 1, charters and vouchers, and health care. Forestal pitched a $25 million loan-repayment program to put doctors in medical deserts. Albright pushed price transparency so patients stop getting ambushed by bills. Both warned against handing the Bears a blank check.
Real disagreements, real policy. Nobody’s head exploded.
It’s not just the legislative races. Last week’s Indiana Debate Commission debate put all four secretary of state candidates on one stage: Republican Max Engling, Democrat Beau Bayh, Libertarian Lauri Shillings and Lincoln Party nominee Greg Ballard. Four candidates, one office and every incentive to throw elbows. Instead, they argued about the job. About the only thing they all agreed on was that the office’s website needs work.
Social media is another story. Spend five minutes in the comment threads under any SoS post and you’ll find supporters and surrogates calling each other spoilers, frauds and worse. The candidates have figured out how to disagree like adults. Some of their fans haven’t gotten the memo.
My friend Alexandra Hudson, an Indianapolis author and founder of Civic Renaissance, wrote a book a few years back called “The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves,” and it explains what I saw. Her central point is that civility and politeness are not the same thing. Politeness is etiquette. It’s saying please, using the right fork, smiling at people you can’t stand. It lives on the surface and can be a mask. You can be perfectly polite to someone you hold in complete contempt.
Civility, as Hudson describes it, runs deeper. It’s a disposition, a recognition that the person across from you has worth simply because they are a person, even when you think they are dead wrong. Real civility doesn’t avoid disagreement. Sometimes it requires it, because telling someone a hard truth respects them more than nodding along.
That’s what these candidates did. They weren’t pleasant because they had nothing to fight about. They were civil because they treated the voters, and each other, like adults who can handle a disagreement without a food fight.
Frankly, boring is what governing looks like. Most of a legislator’s job is committee hearings, fiscal notes and amendments nobody reads. If you can sit through a 90-minute forum without needing a viral moment, you’re probably better suited to that work than someone who can’t.
So here’s my modest proposal. With the election a few weeks out, plenty of you will be heading to candidate forums of your own, and when you do, demand boring. Ask a real question. Then pay attention to who actually answered it, not who got the loudest applause. If we want better behavior from the people we elect, we might start by insisting on it, and noticing it when we get it.
A little civility goes a long way. It also turns out to make for a pretty good lunch in Lawrence and a decent night out in Washington Township.
Abdul-Hakim Shabazz is the editor and publisher of IndyPolitics.org and an attorney licensed in Indiana and Illinois. He finished second in the 2023 Indianapolis Republican mayoral primary and has sat through more candidate forums than he can count.
