Following his time as senator, Coats stayed in the Washington, D.C. area. He was registered to vote in Virginia while working as a lobbyist for King & Spalding. This became an issue as Democrats immediately began attacking him for the Virginia residency as he tried to mount a second Indiana Senate bid in 2010.

Health Care

A common thread among many GOP candidates in 2010 will be the call to repeal the health-care reform that the 111th Congress passed in March 2010. Coats agrees. "We need to start over on health care reform, from scratch, from the beginning."

Coats wanted to see reform efforts centered around "piece-by-piece" changes that included tort reform and allowed insurance companies to sell plans across state lines.

Abortion Rights

During Coats's original tenure in the Senate, he was a strong opponent of abortion rights.

While the Clinton administration attempted to pass health- care reform in 1993, Coats offered up amendments on the Senate floor that would limit state funding of abortions. He feared that the reform efforts would unknowingly lead to taxpayer funding of abortions - an issue that came up frequently during the Obama health-care reform debate in 2009 and 2010.

Gays in the Military

In 1993, the Clinton administration wanted to clear the way for homosexuals to serve in the military. But Republicans were opposed to the idea, and Coats quickly found himself as the face of the opposition.

During the debate, Coats questioned the morality of homosexuals. "My faith teaches, and I personally believe," said Coats in 1993, "that there is a profound moral question raised by homosexuality."

But while serving as a member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, Coats stayed away from moral issues and questioned the ability of homosexuals to serve in the military without causing disruptions in morale or hurting the effectiveness of the entire organization. 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' passed Congress later that year.

In 2010, Obama expressed support for repealing the blind-eye approach to gays in the military. Coats disagrees with those efforts.

"The first thing we should do is go back and look at all that testimony from all the experts, from all the military people, from all the outside people; I think we'll come to the same conclusion that changing this law now... is going to negatively impact the ability to have efficient, effective, fighting forces, particularly today, in the threats that we face," said Coats.

"Injecting this issue into this is just irresponsible."

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