Obama's chances for Hoosier blue: Without Bayh, is Indiana still in play?

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White

At the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) spent most of his time onstage bashing the Republican nominee for president, but his home state of Indiana was featured prominently. He took a moment near the end to signal his state's ripeness for change:

"[Sen. John McCain] says that our economy has made great progress over the past eight years. Try telling that to middle class families across Indiana trying to make ends meet... The time has come for America to no longer be divided into red and blue states, but instead to stand united as 50 red, white, and blue states with a common cause and a common destiny. That's the change we need today."  

In the race for vice president, Bayh was often considered by the media to be the "safe choice" for Sen. Barack Obama. Whether or not that would have proven correct, he may have put Indiana safely into blue territory. Bayh is popular with Hoosiers, having won five statewide elections by sizable margins. Local opinion polling put Bayh's approval rating at 53 percent in April 2008 and 61 percent in November 2007.

Just a few months ago, Indiana was not considered a swing state. The state hasn't swung for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Before that, Indiana hadn't gone blue since the 1930s. Now that Obama has chosen Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as his running mate, has the possibility of Indiana swinging left gone down the proverbial drain?

Seeing evidence of the high turnout and excitement of Hoosiers during the Democratic primary, I started looking at the numbers as well as the amount of time and energy the candidates devoted to Indiana in the primaries, and became increasingly suspicious of the widely held characterization of the state as thoroughly red. I called Lea Erwin, a Hoosier friend of mine who now lives in the Chicago area, to get her thoughts.

"I'm surprised that it's not a swing state," she said. She had recently gone to visit her grandparents there, and said she could tell things were changing. "It's a 50-50 situation in Indiana."

Nate Silver, everyone's new favorite statistical genius and purveyor of FiveThirtyEight.com, puts Indiana in play in his analysis of the state's electoral possibilities this November:

"The essential question then, is whether there has been some sort of latent Democratic vote in Indiana that the Democrats simply haven't bothered to fight for. Indiana has generally had one of the lowest turnout rates in the country, which might be a consequence of its early poll closing times, but might also reflect the apathy caused by the lack of attention paid to it. That alone might not be enough to make the state competitive. But when coupled with the fact that the Democratic nominee is a Midwesterner from a neighboring state, that the state's blue-collar economy is really struggling, and that one campaign is invested in the state when the other isn't, you might have the right mix of circumstances necessary to tip the state."

Turnout is a difficult thing to raise in Indiana, however.  Silver himself notes that voting is made even more cumbersome with Indiana's tough I.D. laws and the fact that polls close at 6 p.m.

Also, numbers can be deceiving. Putting too much faith in polling, especially right around both parties' nominating conventions, is a fool's game.  Besides, the results vary widely anyway. Aggregations on both RealClearPolitics.com and Pollster.com of 10 polls of the presidential race in Indiana conducted in mid-August gives only a slight edge to McCain, with Obama coming out on top in three of the polls. Nearly all Indiana poll results are within the margin of error.

So if numbers can't be trusted, let's look at the issues. One of the most sensitive rifts between Obama and Indiana is one neither he nor most Hoosiers like to talk about. Obama campaign workers all over Indiana reported being met with racial slurs and threats during the Democratic primary there. Three campaign offices received bomb threats. In Indianapolis, one man was arrested for breaking a window of an Obama campaign office. And Obama's office in Vincennes was vandalized in the middle of the night, with one plate glass window smashed, the American flag stolen, and racist graffiti scrawled on the windows.

At the time, the campaign released this almost delusional statement in response to questions about encounters with racism:

"After campaigning for 15 months in nearly all 50 states, Barack Obama and our entire campaign have been nothing but impressed and encouraged by the core decency, kindness, and generosity of Americans from all walks of life. The last year has only reinforced Senator Obama's view that this country is not as divided as our politics suggest."

Lea Erwin is of Indian decent, and grew up in the small town of Coons Lake, IN, where she said there were no black students in her high school graduating class.

"I was the only one in my class with a tint," she said, adding that, while she didn't suffer any overt racism, there was racial tension where she grew up. "The Ku Klux Klan headquarters was 30 miles away from where I lived." 

Erwin noticed the effort to downplay stories about racism in Indiana this electoral season.

"People are really trying to sugarcoat it," Erwin said. "Just like any small town, there's racism.  I don't think people should be afraid to say that."

According to CNN's electoral analysis of Indiana, voters there have a history of bringing racial fears to the ballot box, as became clear in 1964, the last time the state voted for a Democrat for president:

"Pro-segregationalist and former Alabama Gov. George Wallace made news in Indiana's Democratic primary by winning nearly one-third of the vote -- 29.8 percent -- a number which surprised some observers of the northern state. According to The New York Times, Wallace's support in Indiana, and in the Wisconsin primary, illustrated the 'extent of fears' among whites about the race issue."

But Indiana is not an island. As is evidenced by Erwin and others such as her, there are a lot of Hoosiers in Illinois. Also, the northwestern corner of Indiana shares media coverage with the largest market in the Midwest: Chicago.

The Obama campaign did not respond to media inquiries, but it is clear that Indiana's proximity to Obama's home state is seen as a big plus. Near the top of the Web page the campaign has devoted to the state, there is a map highlighting Illinois snuggled right up next to Indiana with a plea to sojourners to get out the vote:

"Indiana is poised to make history by turning blue for the first time in over 40 years... If you're in a neighboring state and are willing to give some time coming to Indiana and helping us spread Barack Obama's message of change throughout the Hoosier state, please sign up today."

In thinking about Indiana, I was imagining farms and a conservative working class, but getting to know Indiana by the numbers held a fair number of surprises.

Indiana is not known for its metropolitan areas, but according to the U.S. Census, Indiana was the 15th most densely populated state in the country in 2005. Indianapolis ranked 12th in a list of the most populous U.S. cities in the same year. Though the median household income falls a little below the country's average, smaller percentages of people are living at or below the poverty line in Indiana than do nationally.

Still, Indiana maintains the impression of a rural, blue collar state, even for those who have lived there.

"It's really that small town feel," Erwin said, noting that it seems like there's "really no major city in Indiana."

And the feelings of small town America happen to matter a lot in this campaign. After Obama's comments about bitterness and frustration in small, Midwestern towns, the opinions of denizens of such areas of the country became the main dividing line between Hillary Clinton's supporters and Obama's. The common media trope became Dunkin' Donuts (Clinton) vs. Starbucks (Obama).

The media buzz about Bayh as Obama's vice president also centered around the Democratic presidential nominee's supposed failures with middle class, rural voters.

Charlie Cook, publisher of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, told the Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne, IN, that having Bayh on the ticket would help Obama's standings with a demographic dominated by Clinton supporters:

"For someone who's having a hard time relating to middle class, white voters over 50... Bayh would not be a bad choice at all."

Before Obama chose Biden as his running mate, Nate Silver addressed the Bayh effect in his analysis of the chances Democrats have in capturing Indiana:

"The Bayh brand name remains extremely powerful in the state, and Evan Bayh can be an effective surrogate, whether or not he is Obama's vice president."

The importance of winning Indiana is not merely symbolic, it's electoral.  On his Web site, Silver identifies Indiana as one of the 15 "tipping point" battleground areas, defined as a state that "would be most likely to alter the outcome of a close election if it were decided differently." He puts Indiana in 6th place on the list, figuring that the state would be pivotal in determining the winner of the general election 11 percent of the time.

Even though they don't get the analytical attention devoted to other demographically changing states such as Virginia and Pennsylvania, Hoosiers know the importance of their 11 electoral votes and are making sure to prepare for this coming November.

"They're all up on their politics," Erwin said. "Now more than ever, they know more than anybody how important their choice is."

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

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