Indiana's ready for its close-up
By Ari Kaufman (05/01/08)
Hoosiers have supported the Republican in 10 consecutive presidential elections and 16 of the 17 that followed FDR's first re-election bid in 1936.
Many of the young folks who hang out inside Barack Obama's downtown Indianapolis campaign headquarters wear "We finally matter" T-shirts, indicating that the "Obama Youth" will speak loudly in the Hoosier State on May 6. But all 6 million citizens of Indiana – at least the Democrats – can make that claim, since Indiana, where the presidential primary typically falls too late to affect the nominations, will matter in 2008. It could even decide the Democratic nomination.
Like the colors of the state's largest university, Indiana is a red state. Hoosiers have supported the Republican in 10 consecutive presidential elections and 16 of the 17 that followed FDR's first re-election bid in 1936. And despite a few congressional seats flipping to the Democrats in 2006, John McCain seems an agreeable-enough candidate to keep Indiana in the GOP's column this November.
Unlike its more left-leaning neighbors in the Upper Midwest, the state of Indiana has fewer large cities, more perspicacious farmers and patriotic veterans, and America's fourth-largest National Guard contingent, which has been very active in the battle against terrorism.
As in Pennsylvania, Indiana's Democrats are deeply divided along socio-economic, age and racial lines, plus their policy priorities and their locale within this culturally diverse state that borders Michigan on one end and Kentucky on the other.
To the common observer, it has become evident that Hillary Clinton is winning here, as she has elsewhere, among the elderly, women, Catholics and especially those middle-class union households in Indiana's northern manufacturing/industrial cities, households that Obama found elusive in Pennsylvania. Unions, powerful in Indiana, have rallied around Clinton, essentially declaring her to be more genuine and less pedantic than Obama.
She has spoken in those blue-collar cities to large audiences of "bitter" workers who have seen jobs disappear, cities like Terre Haute, South Bend, Columbus, Kokomo and Gary. Events in (as Obama called them) "forgotten towns" like Anderson, where historic factories have truly vanished overnight, have been raucous for Clinton.
I spoke with a schoolteacher from tiny Clinton, Ind., as we observed Clinton's speech at the National Headquarters of the American Legion in Indianapolis last week, and she concurred.
"I'm a moderate who loves this country and just wants to put food on the table. Hillary is not perfect, but she may understand us better. To me, Obama is totally out of touch with us folks," she said.
Clinton has the steadfast support of Indiana's Democratic U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, who also served as governor from 1989-97, when Indiana experienced a recrudescence in economic growth. Bayh, regularly hailed as a "fiscal conservative," is popular across party lines, and has been touring the state with Clinton the past few weeks. Many see Bayh as a potential running mate for her.
Hillary has done well in states similar to Indiana (such as Ohio and Pennsylvania), and she has positioned herself as the more centrist Democrat in a Republican state with few radicals.
If current trends continue, Obama will succeed with the same demographics he has all along: urban areas, the most-affluent suburbs and college towns – places where his seeming elitism and media missteps are ignored. Indiana has fewer of such areas than many states.
Obama will undoubtedly be hurt here by some of his condescending remarks about religious folks, gun owners and small towners who are suffering in this economy, but he is still immensely popular elsewhere, such as in downtown Indianapolis. And the million-dollar historic homes just north of Indy display Obama signs, easily at a 4-1 ratio over signs supporting Clinton.
Obama also has "sealed the deal" with many collegians. Consider Indiana University in Bloomington – a campus radical enough to be deemed a Berkeley of the Midwest. On April 2, shortly before former President Clinton spoke at 18,000-seat Assembly Hall, Obama's local office surreptitiously announced they were giving away tickets to an upcoming free campus concert by rocker Dave Matthews. Thousands of students abandoned the Clinton event to claim concert tickets, with many endorsing Obama on the basis of the giveaway and leaving the former president with just 6,000 spectators.
Obama should also do quite well in other large college towns such as Muncie and Lafayette. Indiana's second and third-largest cities, Fort Wayne and Evansville, respectively, also lean toward the senator from neighboring Illinois.
One big name to support Obama is Lee Hamilton, 77, a former longtime Indiana congressman and vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission. "Study Group" Vice-Chair, Lee Hamilton.
"Barack Obama has the best opportunity to create a new sense of national unity and to transcend divisions within this country," Hamilton said.
Whatever happens, this is the most exciting primary election campaign in Indiana since Bobby Kennedy won here four decades ago.
Original: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/indiana-obama-clinton-2026893-state-many (Monday, April 28, 2008)
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