INDIANAPOLIS - Becoming Indiana's attorney general is not, historically, a path to the governorship, or any other higher office. Yes, Democrat Attorney General Alonzo Smith served as an interim lieutenant governor from 1886-89, and Samuel Jackson was briefly in the U.S. Senate in 1944. In 1992, Attorney General Linley Pearson won the Republican gubernatorial nomination, but nearly quit before the convention ended in a dispute over composition of the ticket. In 2016, Attorney General Greg Zoeller lost a 9th Congressional District primary to mostly-unknown Trey Hollingsworth, formerly of Tennessee, who used family wealth to win the nomination and the seat. In the television age of Hoosier politics, Attorney Generals Edwin Steers, John Dillon, Ted Sendak, Pamela Carter, Jeff Modisett, Karen Freeman-Wilson and Steve Carter saw the office as the capstone of their political and legal careers, though the appointed Freeman-Wilson later became the mayor of Gary. Our governors during this modern era have been lieutenant governors, House speakers, state senators, congressmen, or wealthy businessmen. The notion of the state's top lawyer becoming a governor or U.S. senator began after Republican Attorney General Curtis Hill took office in 2017.