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Heavily GOP Indiana Becoming New Battleground In Dem Nomination
Whereas most states left on the primary calendar seem to clearly lean one way or the other between Obama and Clinton, Indiana is now emerging as the true swing state for their May 6 contest.
On the one hand Hillary Clinton has the enthusiastic backing of Sen. Evan Bayh, while on the other hand Barack Obama should expect to run very well in places like Indianapolis and parts of the state served by Illinois media markets. "If I had to pick — and I'm not usually shy about saying who's going to win — I couldn't tell you today," said freshman Rep. Joe Donnelly, who is currently neutral in the race.
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In a straight-up election, I strongly believe Obama would win. I spent my first 20 years in Indiana, and all my friends and family, either in Ft. Wayne, Warsaw, Indianapolis, or Bloomington, are pulling for Obama – and all of them are Republicans! Even my Republican mother donated to Obama; my best friend from high school, a Republican, decided about a month ago to start volunteering for Obama.
But in a state that has twice as many Republicans as Democrats, it’s just not credible to think that a great many Republicans are going to sit at home and not vote. “Operation Chaos” will again swoop in and you will have hoards voting for the person they think will cause the most damage to the party. And the most damaging prospect for the Democrats is a convention floor fight. So their votes will go to Clinton. Another 100,000 in the Clinton column from Limbaugh voters. I saw it happen on the ground in Ohio and it will happen again in Indiana.
March 25, 2008 9:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gosh, I make no pretensions to any special expertise about Indiana, but I have spent a fair amount of time in that fine state in bagpipe competitions. Ft Wayne struck me as whiter than the driven snow. If you are saying that he has a reservoir of support in Ft Wayne, then I think that he will win IN in a cake walk. I think that he should run up huge margins in Gary and the rest of the greater Chicagoland section of IN (which is where most of the democrats live) and take better than half of Indianapolis, South Bend, Bloomington and Terre Haute. I would expect her to do very well in Ft Wayne, Michigan City and most of southern Indiana.
For what little my predictions are worth, I expect Obama to win Indiana by ~9-12%.
March 25, 2008 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hope you're right. For what it's worth, my Hoosier mom, too, was converted by George Bush into a Democrat, and more recently has been converted into an Obama supporter by Hillary's behavior.
March 25, 2008 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why has this shifted to Indiana instead of to North Carolina as the 'true test'? Can anyone explain this to me?
March 25, 2008 9:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think his point is that the state is actually up for grabs. NC should go to obama and PA should go to the clintons. Indiana is probably a total toss-up.
March 25, 2008 9:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't recall North Carolina being mentioned (outside of people affiliated with one of the campaigns) as being a "true test".
I think what is meant by this is that neither campaign has a natural demographic advantage in Indiana so the end result will more closely match up with whichever candidate is campaigning better, making a stronger case, etc...
In Pennsylvania, Clinton has a natural demographic advantage because of the relatively large numbers of elderly and lower income white folks.
In North Carolina, Obama has a natural demographic advantage because of the relatively large numbers of black folks and higher income white folks.
So duh, Clinton will win PA. Duh, Obama will win NC. If either of those does NOT happen it would be considered a huge upset.
Indiana is a tossup, thus the results are perhaps more revealing.
I don't necessarily buy the logic that I just outlined, but I think that's what the prevailing theory is.
March 25, 2008 9:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hoosier Democrats are really excited about this! I've actually got some Republican family members that are voting and supporting Obama this year. Good to be a Hoosier Dem!
March 25, 2008 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting how the source article is cast to build up the sense of parity between the two candidates. Indeed, there may be parity, but explain how 'home turf' by reason of proximity equals the endorsement of Bayh? I know he's popular, but THAT popular? These kinds of articles with this kind of false sense of urgency drive me up the wall.
Little Fish
March 25, 2008 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Another childhood Hoosier here. Having grown up in "the Region" (NW Indiana, Chicago media market), where most of my family still live, I can state with some confidence that while most folks in that area may know who Bayh, Lugar, Mitch Daniels and their US Rep. are, that's about the extent of the knowledge of state/national representation. Otherwise, Illinois issues dominate Chicago media, which devotes very little attention to Indiana. That, and Chicago commuter sprawl to NW Indiana has turned the area slightly bluer than before (witness Donnelly himself, defeating Repub Count Chocula in '06), but the rest of the state remains almost uniformly red.
Given this history, I've been skeptical of claims that IN was an easy win for Obama. I am hopeful, though, that the increasing numbers of blues in NW Indiana, Indianapolis and Bloomington, along with a little home field advantage, may be enough to put Obama over the top.
March 25, 2008 8:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
And may I also add that Clinton hatred, for whatever reason, runs extremely deep in Hoosierland. So the fact that Bayh endorsed her strikes me as particularly odd, and I can only assume that he was either offered something in return or that he has completely misread his state, which is entirely possible since he doesn't really live there anymore. Indiana is a very Republican state, but in a weird way, a very moderately Republican state, and they will vote for someone like Bayh because they think he's reasonable, his family has long been involved in Indiana politics, and because, frankly, he's just a good old Indiana boy. He was the former governor, as well. But the illusion of being a sensible, moderate Dem is popped when he backs someone like Clinton, whom at least half of Indiana considers to be the anti-Christ. He is making a big miscalculation here and my guess is that the Republicans are lining up some heavyweights to take him on in the next Senate race.
Now, if only someone could get Lugar to endorse Obama...
March 25, 2008 10:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have actually seen reported in the press complimentary comments from lugar about obama. Also, lugar and obama cosponsored that nuclear non-proliferation legislation that obama took the lead in marshalling through the senate. Maybe obama can use some of the lugar praise in ads. Finally, rumors have been circulating about lugar as secretary of state in an obama administration.
March 25, 2008 10:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Lugar is probably too old to really be much of a player in a Cabinet position, which is unfortunate because he really is one of the truly good guys on the other side - a moderate Republican who cares little for politics and is interested in getting stuff done. He is smart and practical and never demonizes anyone. I think it's very telling that he and Obama get along so well, and that Obama sought him out when he arrived in the Senate. I would love for Lugar to play a part in an Obama administration, but I don't see it happening.
If Obama could get Hagel and Lugar to endorse him and campaign with him, I think you would see Midwest states crumble under the awesomeness that is Obama.
March 25, 2008 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I actually always liked lugar as well. He seems like a moderate and thinking republican, which are in short supply. Also, hagel's recent conversion on the war raised his standing to me.
March 25, 2008 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I really like Lugar too. If more Republicans were like him this would be a much better country.
March 25, 2008 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Billysumday, Bayh and the Clintons are charter members of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) founded on the premise that, after its losses in 1972 and 1980, the only way for the Democratic party to win elections is to shun "left wing" politics and steer towards the center.
March 25, 2008 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, not the center to the right. Look at the 1st clinton terms. The agenda was right-wing, not dem and was designed to keep the clintons in power. What dem or progressive policies were implemented by the clintons? None. What happened to the dem party under the clintons? It was decimated. It took a war based on lies to get congress back for the dems, talk about damage to the party. I for the life of me do not understand why dems are voting for a third term of the clintons.
March 25, 2008 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
But Indiana doesn't count! It's a red state. It's next to Illinois. It's not big enough. It starts with "I" and sounds kind of like "Iowa." Some black people live there. But wait --- it has a lot of white people, too, like, uh, Minnesota. Pay no attention to it.
March 25, 2008 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've perceived Bayh angling for the VP slot under Hillary for a long time, since he shut down his presidential exploratory committee. Lugar and Obama traveled to Russia to examine the old Russian poorly secured nuclear sites. That non proliferation bill wasn't just for nukes but conventional weapons too.
There's way too many AK-47s and 74s floating around the planet. They up the ante anywhere there's conflict. They turn knife fights into full blown genocidal civil war in places like Sudan, Somalia and yes Iraq. That cynical trade and the export of F-16s to countries like Pakistan has to stop. That's our contribution to the problem but it'll also be the chit we'll put in the pot under Obama to try and end the destabilizing worldwide arms trade that allows any old warlord to wage war.
March 25, 2008 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
There's a guy at Kos who has a diary up that says Indiana will go to Clinton by about the same margin as Ohio. Indiana once had the largest number of Klan members in the nation. Even though I live next door in Illinois I don't know much about the demographics of the state but as an Obama supporter I wouldn't get my hopes up unless Clinton hatred is prevalent among Dems too there.
March 25, 2008 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Does Indiana go monolithic? Seems like we might see different patterns all over. I'm no pro, but Illinois seems to work like Chicagoland vs. Downstate, but Indiana might have more variation? Gary vs South Bend vs Ft Wayne vs Indy vs the Ohio River valley.
Can anyone comment on the way the state might get carved up?
March 25, 2008 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink