Karen Tallian begins campaign for governor

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — State Senator Karen Tallian kicked off a campaign for governor Tuesday.

She’s an outspoken Democrat who says Indiana needs a change.

Tallian calls herself a progressive but believes she is closer to the middle of the road than Mike Pence is.

She is motivated by RFRA, GOP attacks on the Department of Education, and the repeal of the common construction wage.

But in a Statehouse announcement, Tallian said she decided to run for governor two years ago.

She declined to say anything critical about fellow democrats John Gregg or Glenda Ritz.

And she made no effort to avoid her support of more lenient marijuana laws. Tallian supports decriminalization.

“I don’t believe that anybody should be going to jail because they’ve smoked pot,” she said. “I just don’t believe that. If they have a problem then it’s a health problem not a criminal justice problem.”

She also said people from all over the state support legalizing medical marijuana.

“There’s no reason why we can’t give a dying person anything they want,” she said.

Some of the people in the crowd behind Tallian, including at least one Republican, were there solely because of her position on marijuana laws.

Tallian is a long shot, nevertheless.

She starts this race with a couple of disadvantages. She is from northwest Indiana and she has almost no statewide name ID.