|
The gathering was perhaps the last major event with which to take the pulse of the party before the fall electoral tests of the campaigns of Jill Long Thompson and Barack Obama. Both are mounting uphill trailblazing challenges in Indiana—Obama to become the first Democrat to receive the state's electoral votes since 1964, Long Thompson to oust a popular, well-financed incumbent.
Enthusiasm for Obama's campaign is pervasive here, even amongst an establishment cadre that in lockstep supported his opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the primary. And Long Thompson, also once the outcast of the insiders gathered here, emerged from the weekend with successfully brokered labor agreements that represent a closing chapter in her efforts to finally unify the party.
For Long Thompson, it was before now nearly inconceivable that she would mount a winning campaign without securing the support of the autoworkers' union steeped so heavily in Hoosier Democratic politics. But at French Lick, where Democratic pols Adlai Stevenson and Franklin Roosevelt once lounged in smoke-filled rooms, Long Thompson stayed up until two a.m. Saturday with UAW Region Three chief Mo Davidson to hammer out an endorsement agreement.
The next day, Long Thompson quipped to several hundred gathered Democrats that she and Davidson were "singing kumbaya." Davidson told HPI that he and Long Thompson were "not as far apart as we thought we were." The union was to formalize an endorsement over conference call this week, likely opening a spigot of hundreds of thousands of dollars for the campaign and hundreds of volunteers from the union's 114,000 members in the state.
But skepticism continues to trail Long Thompson. When HPI asked one activist previously in party leadership whether Long Thompson could win her campaign against Governor Mitch Daniels, she simply looked down and smirked. Touching upon the touchiest question in French Lick evokes such a reaction: the party's establishment remains enthusiastic about ousting Daniels, but as pessimistic as ever that Long Thompson is the candidate capable of doing it. One former party official told me the campaign had slipped away for good in June.
And as Long Thompson took one step towards party unification, her primary opponent Jim Schellinger dug in. He showed up at IDEA long enough to play a round with the boys club that urged him into the campaign, but skipped town before an appearance with Long Thompson.
Long Thompson knows that as weeks evaporate, the question of unity is one that becomes increasingly moot, however. A campaign needs to be run, with or without a party to celebrate it: running mate Dennie Oxley was shuttled from IDEA lunch to the Tell City Schweitzer Fest; later she traveled the hour and half from French Lick to visit with the same festival-goers for a half hour, only to drive back home to Argos, six hours away, that same night. As Long Thompson left, Lieutenant Governor Becky Skillman showed up, wooing the same two or three hundred voters.
For Long Thompson, there can be little respite. Back at IDEA, even a unified party would be one still more enthusiastic about the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama than hers.
|
|
There, downballot Democrats were effusive about the possibility of an "Obama bounce" that could usher the party's local candidates into office in record numbers. At IDEA, one candidate running for State Representative in a 65% Republican northern Indianapolis district lamented that the House Democratic Caucus hadn't prioritized the campaign for funding. The candidate acknowledged the race's demographic difficulties, though adding, in what has become a common refrain, trailing off: "but with Obama…"
His is something of an unprecedented campaign here. At IDEA, his omnipresent staff announced constituency outreach plans as picayune as crop circles in the shape of the campaign logo.
Obama's mailed 45,000 Indiana farmers receiving federal subsidies. The campaign had planned a disaster relief tour of Bartholomew, Hancock, Johnson, Marion, Monroe, Morgan, Vermilion, and Vigo counties, and a bio-diesel bus tour beginning at a locally owned bio-diesel plant in Hancock county. It's encouraging farmers to paint their barns as Obama advertisements.
Last month the campaign planned visits to African American churches, held conference calls and "community leader meetings" with black pastors, and staged voter registration during the Black Expo. Now the campaign is set on "significantly [increasing] the number of African Americans registered to vote," an effort encompassing barber shop and beauty salon visits and house parties and meetings for African Americans for Obama groups.
The campaign has recruited "Women for Change" leaders to start local Obama groups, holding one-on-one meetings to reach out to supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton, whom Obama defeated in the spring's contentious primary season. Through October 19 the campaign has planned "Women United for Change" meetings and parties, and will stage women-centric canvasses and phone banks. It has planned a "major" coordinated voter registration drive with Indiana unions on Labor Day, coined "Labor Day of Action." It has weekly veteran-to-veteran calling nights, the political team has formed Latino Outreach Committees in East Chicago, Indianapolis, South Bend, and Fort Wayne, and it has planned Latino events at the state fair and a "Fiesta Statewide Day of Celebration" on September 15.
There are downsides. The legislative candidate so optimistic about the Obama bounce characterizes his Indiana operation as insular and exclusive. Quixotic predications of old that Obama's coordinated campaign could deliver places like Hamilton County have given way to backbiting about agreements to circulate literature and volunteer lists.
Data sharing with local Democratic infrastructure has been slow. One county chairwoman asked in the campaign's Constituency Outreach meeting how she get a list of Obama neighborhood captains—activists already organizing beneath her nose, in her own county, without her knowledge. For local parties, Obama's movement is "sapping volunteers," said one political staffer, and, according to another, hording its resources.
"Everyone's on their own," she said. "It's always like this."
At IDEA, the longtime activists that have religiously flocked to this southern Indiana town every year hoping for something different are readjusting their expectations.
|
