So far, the voters of Indiana's 2nd Congressional District are getting what U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly, D-Granger, promised he'd give them.

While it appeared during last year's campaign against incumbent Republican Chris Chocola of Bristol there wasn't a whole lot of difference between the two candidates, Donnelly has emerged in his first seven months in Congress as someone who has been willing to go against his party on key issues.

He's representing his district first, putting party loyalty second on the big things -- Iraq, stem cell research and the budget, for example.

Truth reporter Jason McFarley examined Donnelly's key votes thus far during the 110th Congress. He found that while Donnelly voted with the party more than 80 percent of the time on most issues, it's the ones where he hasn't that stand out.

For example, the Granger freshman voted against removing President Bush's restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research; the Democrat-proposed budget for FY-2008; expanding the hate-crimes law; and cutting off war funding and withdrawing troops within a nine-month timeline.

His record stands in stark contrast to his predecessor, Chocola, who voted with the Bush administration on most key issues during his entire tenture. In fact, that was one of Donnelly's criticisms of Chocola during the campaign -- that the Bristol Republican was a "rubber stamp" for Bush.

As for Donnelly's pre-election promise to be an independent thinker ... he's doing a fair job of it so far.

Time will tell if Donnelly stays the course, but this Blue Dog Democrat seems committed to putting his constituents ahead of his party.

The real test, of course, will be in November of 2008. That's when we'll know if the voters of