During Progressive Indiana Network’s Portraits and Perspectives event, I sat down with Carl Stutsman, candidate for Indiana State House District 48 in North Elkhart County—basically the whole northern half of the county right up to the state line at the very top of Indiana. Carl made the two-and-a-half-hour drive down from Elkhart, though he’s always happy to visit Indianapolis where he has friends and family and where he can look at the statehouse and imagine how things could be.
When I asked about his inspiration for running, Carl’s answer was straightforward about timing: if you’re looking for motivation as a Democrat or progressive person in Indiana to actually have the opportunity to make change, now’s it. This is as close as we’ve gotten in the last 20 years to the general public being motivated enough that there’s a real opportunity to pick up votes, raise campaign funds, and make changes.
We discussed personal struggles, and Carl shared a deeply affecting story about growing up in a household with a mom who worked 40-plus hours a week as a physical therapist aid at the hospital for over 30 years, and a father who was a disabled veteran. His dad worked around pest control in the military, which poisoned his kidneys, led to a kidney transplant, and the transplant caused cancer. The family had to work with their local congressional office just to get him the VA care he needed by the time he was dealing with cancer. As a kid, Carl just lived in the environment—everything felt normal. But as an adult, his perspective changed on the sacrifices his father made and the things they went without as a family. Living in a trailer with three kids and only one parent who could work, Carl began to understand not who to blame, but rather who was responsible for creating those circumstances and what systems were failing families like his.
When I asked about fictional characters, Carl chose Spock from Star Trek. He appreciates the false narrative that Vulcans don’t have emotions or feelings—when the truth is those feelings and emotions are so intense, but right on the surface is just that duck swimming on water. You can’t see what’s happening underneath. As a reporter and someone people call when they have questions or things happening in their lives, Carl relates to that ability to hold intense feelings while maintaining composure to help others process their experiences.
Our conversation turned to interpersonal relationships in the statehouse, and Carl emphasized that you have to have positive interpersonal dynamics—or at the very least, if you can’t maintain positive dynamics, you should maintain workable dynamics. That’s the job: being put in a place with individuals representing various corners of the state and cohesively working together to create something that actually works for people. While some representatives deserve to have someone combative with them—someone who holds their feet to the fire asking why they stand for certain things—Carl approaches it differently. As a journalist at heart, he’s more interested in letting other people see who someone is by the actions they take. He doesn’t need to tell people if someone’s not a good representative or isn’t doing their job—he’ll let that person tell them in their own unique way.
When I asked about legacy, Carl wants to be known as authentic and responsible for everything happening in his community—even if things don’t go through him directly, taking responsibility for what’s happening around him.
This wasn’t a conversation with someone seeking personal glory. It was a discussion with a journalist who understands both the power of letting actions speak and the urgency of the current political moment. Carl Stutsman is running because the opportunity is here, the motivation is real, and someone needs to bring authentic representation and collaborative problem-solving to a district that deserves better than the status quo.
Check out Carl’s interviews with Derrick Holder and Brianna Newhart, and all of our interviews with other candidates from this event at progressiveindiana.net.
