GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Tea leaves say Grooms will run again in 2018, dooming NA to a third Gahan mayoral bid in 2019.

Never forget.

The Green Mouse has learned that regional oligarchs are breathing easier. Barring the unexpected, Indiana State Senator Ron "RFRA and Toll Highways" Grooms -- who never met a monied interest he didn't fervently embrace -- will seek a third term in 2018.

If true, Grooms' decision to extend a political career than began way back in 1984 effectively rules out a challenge by Mayor Jeff "Dear Leader" Gahan, who would have sought a promotion to state office only if the seat opened.

For all his self-eroticization by sycophantic press clipping, Gahan knows he cannot beat Grooms head to head. Reality is reality, even when one's head has swelled to the size of Kerry Stemler's empathy gap.

So, now what?

Gahan's massive campaign finance war chest will be withheld until 2019, and his now inevitable bid for a third term as mayor. Ambitious bootlickers like Bob Caesar simply must swallow their medicine and continue coddling the mayor's lunch pail.

In 2018, Adam Dickey can resolutely bound from the trench of delusions and walk across no man's land toward incumbent Ed Clere's electoral machine gun nest, all the while spouting gibberish from the DNC's Clintonesque text.

And local Democrats in Floyd and Clark counties must find a candidate to take one for the team in opposition to Grooms.

Hmm. David "Dugout" Duggins could do that, couldn't he?

After all, he can run for State Senate without pretending to care enough about Floyd County to move here -- and his handlers are dressing him so very nicely here lately.

The Green Mouse drinks a lot, but he never misses those sartorial hints.