My name is Thomas and I write over at the Blue Indiana blog, which up until recently didn't have a whole lot to do with the Democratic presidential primary. We in the Hoosier state pulled for our favorite team, but at the end of the day, our May primary seemed light-years away. Having not mattered in this particular electoral process for decades, we had all resigned ourselves to our collective fate.
But fate has a funny way of not doing exactly what you had planned, and as we cruise toward April it is becoming increasingly clear that Indiana won't just matter -- we'll be a battleground. This morning's Washington Post sets the stage:
Wedged between Illinois, which is Sen. Barack Obama's home state, and Ohio, which Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton dominated on March 4, Indiana may be the one state remaining on the primary calendar where both candidates begin with a roughly equal chance of coming out ahead.First things first: Who is winning? That's the question of the hour. I'm asking it, politicians are asking it, and I have heard rumors that more than a few national polling outfits are asking it around the state right now. The bottom line is that no one knows, but the early edge seems to be toward Hillary for two main reasons.That fact alone makes it stand out from states such as Pennsylvania, where the playing field for the April 22 contest offers big advantages to Clinton (N.Y.), or the Oregon race a month later, which clearly tilts toward Obama.
The biggest one at face value is that the demographics of the state tend to cater to the areas in which Clinton has enjoyed success in the past. Indiana has been ravaged by job losses in heavy industry, and just today another 900 jobs were lost due to a GE plant closing in the town where I live. Hillary has already made one stop, and Bill has made more than a few, and with ten cities already under their belt, it is clear that the Clinton campaign wants to focus on these moderately rural, predominantly white regions of the state that share much in common with the more economically troubled areas to our east. In fact, the Ohio ground operation that gave Clinton her much-needed victory appears to have been shipped wholesale across the border and into the state.
The second major factor at work here, which really is the more intriguing from a state-focused political perspective, is the wildcard represented by our own Sen. Evan Bayh. Bayh endorsed Clinton very early on in the process, after he had dropped out of the race and before anyone was making even the slightest movement to legitimately challenge Hillary's front-runner status. He's far and away the most popular Democrat in the state, with approval ratings consistently above the mid-sixties, and his centrist attitude and cautious political sense has sustained his place as the standard-bearer in Indiana for over a decade.
When he announced his support -- and according to many astute observers, an unofficial bid for the running mate slot -- a good majority of the state's Democratic leadership did as well, including the Speaker of the Indiana House, the Indiana Democratic Party state chair, and the last Democratic Governor. This has translated into a 5-2 lead in the superdelegate count, with another five up for grabs among the uncommitted congressional delegation. Rumors say that more than a few lean toward Obama, but the popular vote totals will likely determine a lot.
Of course, the Obama campaign is confident that they can take great advantage of areas of the state where they should thrive. We have at least three big college towns, and you will rarely meet someone from the northwest third of the state who doesn't refer to their home as "just outside of Chicago." The Obama campaign announced the opening of ten field offices yesterday, as well as the hiring of a full field staff, and their activity in the Indianapolis area has signaled that they believe the state's largest city will be an asset come election day.
Sen. Obama has only made one trip himself to the state, a general absence that, within the context of the recent Clinton tour, has many wondering if he has already ceded the point, but I have been assured by numerous people related to the campaign that they plan to contest this state with full force, and the only (arguably dubious) poll to be done of the race thus far had Obama up by 15 points.
Where does that leave us? It's anyone's guess, but I'm inclined to agree with the Post that we will see Indiana be one of the last truly up-for-grabs states in the primary schedule. And with 84 delegates at stake, there will likely be a lot of grabbing going on. I'll have more in my next post about why Sen. Evan Bayh has more invested in this race than many realize.
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