Understanding Indiana politics may be key for national Democrats

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Sun, Apr. 16, 2006
Understanding Indiana politics may be key for national Democrats
BY PAUL NUSSBAUM
Knight Ridder Newspapers

INDIANAPOLIS - Hoosiers finally changed their clocks this month, after decades of year-round standard time. Now, will they change their voting habits?

The last time Indiana voted for a Democrat for president was 1964, in the Lyndon Johnson landslide. And the time before that was 1936, when Franklin D. Roosevelt carried every state but Maine and Vermont.

But as national Democrats search for enough red-state votes to win the White House in 2008, there may be lessons to learn from this deeply crimson Midwestern bastion of Republicanism.

After all, Indiana voters handed Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh 62 percent of their vote in 2004, even as they gave President Bush 60 percent.

Bayh, who is trying to become a viable presidential contender for 2008, says the political alchemy of turning red voters blue is something that Democrats can master.
(snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/nation/14356527.htm

[tulip]

1. Never say never.

We have found our nation is comprised of a 50/50 population as determined in the last 2 presidential elections. The trick will be to sway more independents and moderates to our side. Can it be done? If it happens in Indiana it can happen anywhere. Bush won the last election by just enough votes to fill a football stadium.........we simply need to fill that stadium with Democratic voters. That's all folks.

[INdemo]

2. I think the Red voters will be voting blue in the Congressional races !!

[salin]

3. Check out this ltte in the b-ton paper:

Appearances can be deceiving

To the editor:

Congress is showing more backbone in its dealings with President Bush, but it's an election year, and appearances can be deceiving. The wars continue and America's most patriotic children are in harm's way.

While growing up in the 1950s, I was taught to love an America whose values have very little in common with what is being done today in America's good name. I voted Republican at the national level all of my adult life, but in 2000, I helped elect a president who stuffed his administration full of personal cowards. Those people believe the end justifies any means and any sacrifice of life, morality or treasure. But they have never risked a single hair on their own precious scalps. Congress has facilitated the wild adventures of this pack of monkeys.

Dear friend, you know our traditional values. You read the news and know what a mess we have on our hands at the national level. This may be one of the most crucial election years in our history. In my opinion, because of outrages the majority party protects and funds, voting Republican this year might well be both unpatriotic and un-American. After all, leopards who hide their spots during election years will always remain leopards.

XXXXXX, Clear Creek

This is from today's edition (April 15, 2006)
One more vote moved from Soderal to Hill...

[tulip]

4. You may be right!

Lets hope!

[Voltaire]

5. Let me get this straight

We have to have a person like Bayh or Warner....a person that midwesterners like, because of their vaunted VALUES.....because

1. We are too chickenshit as a party to call bullshit on the Republicans when they paint our candidate as ANYTHING but what they are and...

2. We have to sweat the fact that a lot of people in the midwest and south will buy the lie that the Republicans put out.

I think that is one fucked up way to pick a candidate, excuse my rather cynically jaded french. I am originally from the East and I am sick and fucking tired of pandering to people who in the main don't know enough about the process to be allowed to vote any goddamned way. Oh, we gotta have a southerner or midwesterner on the ticket or we CAN'T WIN!!! We can't have an east coast or west coast person they are CRAZY COMMIES!!!!!

Its all bullshit.

[DrGonzoLives]

6. Then go back east

and leave us dumb hicks to whittle away on the front porch while our sister/wives cook dinner for the youngins.

Or, maybe, idiot "experts" in the Beltway who have never even looked at the Midwest except perhaps on a map should stop treating us all like idiots? Nah, that can't be it.

[izzybeans]

7. I agree if the solution is "whispering wind" Bayh type politics then

I'd rather just take a pass, not without a fight anyway. Concession at this point would be tremendous defeat.

[tulip]

8. Yeah that's American

Excuse me but people died for the Voting Rights Act! NO TESTS to vote. Can't stand it when folks post that crap. Vote your conscience but take your test back to NY.

[Voltaire]

9. As a minimum requirement

Should people not be aware of issues? All I hear of here in THE HEARTLAND is about VALUES voters and how we must always cater to them. Why? Does no other part of the country have values, issues, concerns. Why must we always cater to the Midwest, The South and the Middle? Anything that has ever been positive in this country has come from the LEFT, and that ain't where Bayh is. Keep pandering though, if we don't fix the fucking voting machine problem we are going to lose the next two elections anyway. Our values out here are sure to keep us warm at night though.

[DrGonzoLives]

10. Do you actually speak to people here

or just repeat what you hear on the news?

See, the "values" I hear about most are affordable health care, how Bush has trashed the schools, how Daniels and his policies are moronic, etc. They might actually start voting for Democrats when the "enlightened" people in the "civilized" parts of the country stop treating them like the backwards hillbilly cousin-in-law.

[tulip]

11. I have lived here........

most of my life......over the 30 year maximum you require but I grew up in Atlanta. If you don't know about the Selma to Montgomery march you're the one who should be taking the frickin voter test. Viola Liuzzo was a midwesterner from Michigan. While you were busy in NY she died so no one would ever have to be denied the right to vote. The right as a U.S. citizen and I thank her every time I vote. NO TESTS TO VOTE EVER AGAIN!

http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/cost.htm

[Dembo98]

12. Your lack of understanding...

about places like Indiana is why we will continue to lose there.

[Dembo98]

13. Also, ...

us hicks have values like when we try to get a point across, its not the one who uses the foulest language to create passion who wins. No big deal, just my hoosier values kickin in.

[izzybeans]

14. A native hoosier who just moved back from "out east" here

You've got to have kid gloves around here when it comes to conservatives. Most of them are very naive and are completely unprepared at this point in time to hear something like that. The groundwork of the right wing movement is too strong. It has turned some good intentioned people into reactionaries willing to jump and bark for the sake of partisan loyalty more than anything else. I've found no matter what gets thrown out in the political wind it becomes a chew toy that confirms their political branding.

Trust has to be won first. Far too many people on the right have the same ability to trust as a junkyard dog around here. How to win that trust needs to be the topic of long discussion that ends up being a long term political strategy. They are too busy protecting their junk to recognize freedom is on the other side of the fence.