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Fifty days before its primary, Sen. Obama brought the stalemated Democratic presidential campaign to Indiana Saturday, hosting a town hall meeting in a packed Plainfield gymnasium. His earlier-than-expected visit prompted rival Sen. Hillary Clinton to announce a Hoosier State swing of her own.
With Bill Clinton’s swing through eastern Indiana - Lawrenceburg, Richmond and Fort Wayne - and Hillary Clinton cutting a western swath from Terre Haute, to Anderson, and then back to Evansville, the former first couple let it be known that the Hoosier state was in play. The two campaigned with dynastic Hoosiers - Bayhs, O’Bannons and Kernans. Lines formed in Terre Haute at 2:45 a.m. Thursday as people hoped to get into the 150-capacity Saratoga Cafe. When Clinton and Bayh appeared at the Anderson Wigwam late Thursday afternoon, another 6,000 people had tracked into the old hoops gym with lines winding several blocks. With Clinton and Bayh on the stage for more than an hour, the day had a feel of a screen test for a possible Democratic ticket. That is, if Hillary Clinton can overtake Obama’s narrow but virtually insurmountable lead in elected delegates. The nomination might be with the super delegates and Indiana has at least four uncommitted. Newly elected U.S. Rep. Andre Carson - treated with great enthusiasm in Anderson - attended both Obama and Clinton rallies and is one of the uncommitteds.
Clinton was asked twice by folks in the crowd if she would choose Bayh as her vice president. Clinton replied that it was"kind of presumptuous" to talk about a vice presidential nominee now (though it wasn’t earlier this month when the campaign was suggesting a Clinton-Obama ticket), but said she sits next to Bayh on the Senate Armed Services Committee and "I can tell you I have a real high opinion of him." Clinton trailed Obama 40-25 in a Howey-Gauge Poll in mid-February, but by Thursday, it was clear that the star politicians from the Bayh-O’Bannon-Kernan era of Hoosier politics were thrusting their full weight behind Clinton and, perhaps, a Bayh vice presidential nod. Sen. Bayh has a lot riding on the May 6 primary, for if she loses it would be the first time since his political career began in 1986 that he hasn’t prevailed at the ballot box, even if this is by proxy.
Bayh took the Wigwam stage with uncharacteristic fervor, telling the enthused crowd that Clinton would "stand up to the Chinese" on trade and "make health care affordable." Bayh implored: "Friends, these are serious times and we face serious challenges," almost shouting above the repeating din from a blue collar crowd lapping it up. "Hillary is experienced to do this job for middle class families and communities like Anderson."
Clinton vowed to take "any advantage away from any business that exports a job overseas." She promised to "invest in manufacturing" and at one point said to people who say the United States should return to the 1990s, "What part of the ’90s don’t they like? The peace or the prosperity?" Her words were accented by the fading banners and stained woodwork of the Wigwam, and the hulking and haunted shells of empty GM plants near the Anderson Speedway several miles south of the venue. She promised to renegotiate NAFTA, the trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, that would include environmental and labor elements currently not in the agreement. "It is important we play on a level playing field," said Clinton, whose motorcade also passed the new, sparkling Nestle plant on I-69 as she drove in from Terre Haute, but it also passed by the former Guide Lamp headquarters that now bears the sign "Remy." In a cramped Terre Haute diner with people spilling out onto Wabash Street and native son Bayh seated at her elbow, Clinton said, "I’m optimistic that together we can make the changes we need to make. It won’t be easy, but nothing in life is easy. We’re going to start acting like America together." The crowd whooped with joy.
Clinton appeared at these rallies with labor leaders, housewives, and farmers. "Evan and I want to have a conversation because we’ve worked on these issues," Clinton said at Terre Haute. "Honestly, we’ve run into a lot of roadblocks from the Republican Congress and the Republican White House." Bayh responded, "Let’s do it." He said that Clinton "didn’t want to do these big rallies. I’d just like to meet with some regular people. I want this to be a dialog, a two-way street. We’re going to have a conversation today about your challenges and she’s going to tell us some ideas of how to meet those challenges and to build a better America. I admire that kind of leadership. It’s not just talking at people. It’s listening and coming up with real solutions that make a difference."
Bayh was asked if Hillary Clinton will attend Dyngus Day next Monday in South Bend. "I would tell you if I knew, but I don’t," Bayh told the South Bend Tribune’s Ed Ronco. "We’ve put in the request, because I think it would be a great thing if one or the other of them would come. She assures me she does like kielbasa and has been known to have a beer." Asked about a potential spot on the ticket with Clinton, Bayh said, "It’s good for my ego, but we need to focus on what’s good for the country and good for the state. Families are struggling. Businesses are failing. Let’s focus on what to do about that. And if we do that, the political stuff will take care of itself."
Indiana has an 84-person delegation to the Democratic Convention in Denver, including 72 pledged delegates and 12 superdelegates. Of the superdelegates, five have endorsed Clinton and two have endorsed Obama. The rest, Indiana’s five in the House of Representatives, remain undeclared. The 72 pledged delegates at stake make Indiana the third-largest prize left on the map, dwarfed only by Pennsylvania, which holds its primary April 22, and North Carolina, which votes with Indiana on May 6. Tough North Carolina has 43 more pledged delegates, there has been only one appearance there by Obama, suggesting that the campaigns view it as less competitive. Similarly, Pennsylvania is widely viewed as favorable Clinton territory.
During her 11-state losing streak in which Obama forged a triple-digit delegate lead, Clinton often seemed to be shouting at her audiences. She was tinny and pleading. But on Thursday in Anderson, Clinton was impressive. She hit a populist tone and connected with a mostly adoring crowd. She brought them to their feet by promising the beginning of a withdrawal from the Iraq War. "Our sons and daughters cannot win the Iraq civil war," Clinton declared as the crowd erupted in cheers. Both Clintons were on-message throughout the six appearances that, with this historically unique tag-team, ups the ante for Obama to quickly return to Hoosier soil.
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The Plainfield event distributed all 2,000 tickets within an hour of being offered on the Internet. The Obama campaign now hopes to translate the enthusiasm into a robust field operation, preparing to transfer at least a dozen paid staffers to Indiana and opening its first office in Terre Haute this week. Indiana is an enigmatic state for both campaigns.
Its Ohio-like constituencies of white working-class voters would appear to favor Clinton, but Obama can look to highly populated yet underperforming African American precincts in Northwest and Central Indiana - the latter of which are often blamed for Mayor Bart Peterson’s 2007 downfall - to offset likely losses in rural counties. In Wisconsin, Obama won some of his largest margins in the southern half of the state, where the Chicago media market penetrates the border. Where that market overlaps with Indiana, it not only offers a source of electoral strength, but also allows Obama to wield his significant financial advantage over Clinton in one of the most expensive media markets in the country. The same phenomenon exists in southern Indiana, where Obama will be able to afford more advertising in the Louisville market despite the high percentage of "wasted" penetration into Kentucky. Cincinnati’s media market reaches even less of Indiana, and only Obama could afford to advertise there in the run-up to Ohio’s primary, where wasted ads trickle into Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. Obama’s campaign leaked a spreadsheet in February that showed the Illinois senator winning the state 53% - 46%, snagging 39 delegates to Clinton’s 33. The spreadsheet, which was mistakenly attached to an e-mail sent two days after Super Tuesday, represented only one of multiple possible projections, but has proven strikingly prophetic. It projected a 51% - 47% victory for Sen. Clinton in Texas. She won with exactly 51%, he exactly with 47%. Obama won Wyoming 61% - 38%, a victory the spreadsheet had pegged at 60% - 40%. And Obama won Mississippi 61% - 37%, where the campaign projected a 62% - 38% victory. It projected a 53% - 46% victory for Sen. Clinton in Ohio; she won 54% - 44%.
The spreadsheet shows Obama winning by seven points in both Oregon and Indiana, and Clinton winning by five in Pennsylvania. No other contests are as close. As Oregon drifts to Obama and Pennsylvania to Clinton, Indiana, then, becomes the only swing state left. In Plainfield, Obama made his first strike at the pendulum, telling an overflow crowd at Plainfield High School, "We are going to be campaigning actively in Indiana. This is your campaign. This is your chance to make your mark on history. Right now. Right here." It’s the first time it’s been this meaningful since 1968 when Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Sen. Eugene McCarthy battled for the nomination that would elude them both. Obama mentioned RFK, who acquired a legendary status in 1968 when he was assassinated two months later. "What you have to also do is remember what Bobby Kennedy said. It is within our power to join together to truly make a United States of America," Obama said. Both Obama and Clinton have been invited to the Democratic Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner on Sunday May 4. Obama told Hoosiers that they might not always agree with him on every issue, but he would always listen. "I am here to report that the American people are ready for change," Obama said. "Change doesn’t happen from the top down, it happens from the bottom up."
As HPI reported earlier this month, the Ohio Valley and the 6th CD - where the winner gets an extra delegate - will be the prime Hoosier battlegrounds. The Clintons played to this strategy with their stops in Lawrenceburg, Evansville and Terre Haute (another traditional Democratic/labor river city) along with Anderson and Richmond in the 6th.
President Clinton’s appearances were reminders of just how extraordinary this race in Indiana will be. Never has a former president immersed himself so intensely in a post-White House campaign. In Fort Wayne, he was introduced by Mayor Tom Henry and then former Gov. Joe Kernan, who is backing Hillary, he said, because "she is capable" in his words. Clinton said that the pundits deemed Indiana unwinnable for Hillary because it "shares a border with Illinois."
President Clinton’s event was billed as a town hall, though no questions were taken from the crowd that was half seated, half standing. Clinton arrived 30 minutes late. The field director before Clinton spoke encouraged the crowd to sign giant volunteer sheets taped to the walls in the back. When HPI left, they were still blank. Abortion protesters picketed outside the Grand Wayne Center. One abortion proteste carried a sign warning fathers to "Lock Up Your Daughters, Bill’s in Town." The line to get into the Grand Wayne Center stretched at least a city block; several hundred were turned away.
At Fire Station No. 1 in RIchmond, Ind., Tuesday afternoon President Clinton said, "The next president will have very difficult choices to make. The next president has to be a commander-in-chief as well as a diplomat-in-chief." As for the issue that appears to be poised to dominate the 2008 campaign, Clinton said, "Most Americans already think we are in a recession." And Clinton said that Democrats would "make history either way" by electing Hillary Clinton or U.S. Sen. Barack Obama.
Hoosiers were responding to the historical nature of this campaign. And it’s only the first week. The two weeks after Pennsylvania and before Indiana’s May 6 primary are going to be an intense, extraordinary and riveting chapter in Hoosier political history, here in the last swing state.
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