The state of Indiana is a complex mix — from old steel mill towns to areas dominated by big universities, from the industrial midwest down to the south. It's full of the blacks and middle and upper-income whites who tend to like Obama, and of the working class whites who've been resonating more and more to Hillary later. And it's sandwiched between Illinois, where Obama one with eighty percent, and Ohio, where Hillary Clinton's ten point victory arguably resuscitated her campaign last month.

Watch a slide show of Andrea's pictures from Indiana on Flickr.

May 7 at 9:32AM

Well, we end the North Carolina and Indiana campaigns where they began — the polls exactly reflect the race right after Pennsylvania. Wright, the gas-tax holiday issue — Obama seems to have weathered 'em. Makes it that much harder for Clinton to argue to the supers that he will fold like a cheap card table in the fall. However, when I was in Gary last week, African-American voters there told me they’d vote for Clinton if Obama wasn’t in the race. But in the south (which is, for all practical purposes, the South), the white working class voters we’ve heard so much about were pretty clear about not voting for Obama. So that remains an issue for him.

So... how did Clinton and Obama do in the counties in Indiana I visited? Lake county (the one we were all waiting for last night) went for Obama, about 66,000 vote to 53,000. That includes Gary, whose population is virtually all African-American. But the margin wasn’t gigantic, suggesting the largely white Chicago suburbs around Gary (pop. 84,000) tilted to Clinton. I was there in Valparaiso, at the Round the Clock — McCain country — but the white Dems were some of the most deeply troubled by the Wright affair (the overwhelming majority of those who said Wright affected their decision voted for Clinton, according to an Associated Press exit poll. In Tippecanoe and Monroe counties, homes to Purdue and Indiana University, respectively, Obama won with 60 and 66 percent of the vote. However, two interesting factoids: I was in Jeffersonville and the surrounding rural counties on Thursday — very, very southern. Those counties went for Clinton, but her margins, while healthy, weren’t overwhelming like they were in some Pa. counties, where she trounced him four to one. So that would suggest the gas-tax holiday didn’t gin up the vote for her there.

AND, she lost, handily, in the Indy suburbs. When I was there, in the new economy town of Carmel, there were lots of people talking (favorably) about her experience. I thought she might win in these areas, like she did in Silicon Valley. But I was there BEFORE Obama went up on the air with his commercial accusing her of pandering on the gas tax issue, and before her Stephanopoulos appearance where she damned economists. I’m wondering if she lost some elites (whom she called elitists, and not approvingly) because of this.

Further evidence: On the question who’s the most like you, Obama WON in Indiana, slayed in North Carolina.

May 2 at 8:06AM

Jeffersonville, Ind.

Jeffersonville's on the Ohio River just across from Louisville, Ky. The town has a few stately homes with mile-long, perfectly manicured lawns sloping down to the gorgeous, wide river, but most of the houses are modest one-story affairs. If you have any doubts that I'm in the South, listen to the voices at the top of the show segment from Friday morning. It's as if, south of Indianapolis, someone flicked a switch.

It was a beautiful evening yesterday in Jeffersonville, lots of folks hanging out in front of the historic Third Base bar, others helping themselves to fried chicken and mashed potatoes at Ann's Cafeteria just up the street. Topics of conversation: the Kentucky Derby (it's tomorrow) and the price of fuel.

Mixed reaction to Clinton and McCain's proposal for a gas tax holiday. "A holiday?" one 'siding and gutter' man asked me. "As in one day?" When I explained the proposal was for the whole summer, he came back with "so we'll pay in the winter. That sucks." But most were for it, pointing out they know people who are cutting back on their driving (which is a goal of both Democrats' environmental proposals, btw) because of the price of gas. "People just can't afford it," one woman told me.

Conflicting signs for the Democrats in the fall. I met lots of Republicans who were upset with Bush on the war, but they liked the Democrats even less. "A sad situation," as one one told me, concluding she'd probably vote for McCain because she didn't want "eight more years" of the Clintons and wouldn't even consider Obama. Another said the Dems should just get out "their hammer and sickle." On the other hand, there were a couple of Republicans surprised to find themselves thinking about Hillary Clinton (just as, in Indianapolis and Carmel, some Republicans were leaning to Obama.)

In most states, Obama's steadily picked up steam as voters get to know him, with the brakes put on only in the closing days of the race. But the whole Rev. Wright affair froze this race about a week ago. Dems are now mulling Obama, maybe he isn't experienced enough.

We'll see what the weekend brings.

May 1 at 5:41PM

Jeffersonville, Ind.

I'm in Jeffersonville, watching Hillary Clinton, who's joined here by Bobby Kennedy Jr. He's accusing some members of his family of making "the wrong choice." Clinton is talking about "jobs, jobs, jobs." I see a banner here that I haven't seen before: "standing up for jobs, standing up for you." When I drove out of Bloomington, I drove into the South. Nightcrawlers and Red Wigglers in the cooler at the convenience store, hot relish at the roadside stand. Guys with long beards (the one at Gnaw Bone Sorghum Mill said, with no hesitation, that he's for Clinton). A serious twang in people's voices. (Hillary's too.) She's getting a rise out of the crowd now, saying she's going to push for a vote on her gas tax holiday proposal, which she's casting as getting the oil companies to pay what "hard pressed" Americans are paying for now. "I want to know (of her fellow members of Congress), are they with us or against us?"

May 1 at 10:36AM

Bloomington, Ind.

Just finished up breakfast at the Runcible Spoon, which my hotel clerk described to me as a "Bohemian" place. Yup. Highlights were fresh-cut fresh fruit and apple butter. The place was filling up with students and ex-students hanging out inside next to shelves of books and outside on what is shaping up to be a perfect spring day. But the flush on their faces was the afterglow from the Obama speech last night, which was still making them smile. "Awesome," said one graduate, "just awesome." The youth vote is important in this state — the university towns are big population centers, and they heavily favor Obama.

One area where Obama didn't do as well as might be expected was Carmel, an Indianapolis suburb. Carmel is new economy — tech, insurance, health care. Parts of the town are so new that statues of shoppers and benchwarmers are taking the place of real people. The area has voted heavily Republican, but those residents who are voting Democrat seem to be tilting to Clinton on the "experience" question. That's interesting because higher income whites (those who are Democrats) usually lean to Obama. This same phenomenon was at work in Silicon Valley. Much of the San Francisco Bay area went for Obama — but not the counties of Santa Clara and San Mateo. Governors in all sorts of states, red and blue, are trying to set up these tech corridors. Indiana's a red state, but what happens to its politics when voters from the coasts come to regions like Carmel? What happens to the electoral college map? Worth watching.

NB — I know my chats with voters aren't scientific. So let's keep an eye on Hamilton County Tuesday night and see whether it goes Clinton or Obama (and find out how many Democrats vote there, period.)

I'm off to Jeffersonville, just over the river from Louisville to see Hillary Clinton. More later.

April 30 at 11:44PM

Bloomington, Ind.

Just left Indiana University, where a huge traffic jam leaving the assembly hall delayed my filing by nearly an hour. Obama gave as energetic an address as he ever has, hitting all his favorite themes — his "cousin" Dick Cheney won't be on the ballot in the fall, he wants to "close Guantanamo," he was never for the war in Iraq. But he added some twists. The person you want to answer the phone at 3 a.m. is the one who had the judgment to oppose the war in the first place. The proposed gas holiday is a "McCain-Clinton proposal." Those who question his love of his country (a byproduct of one of the Wright speeches) don't understand his Kansas roots, his modest upbringing, his "only in America" story. That's become a tough issue here in Indiana — there wasn't a single person I spoke to today who hadn't heard of Wright, and many brought him up, unprompted. As for the "gas tax holiday" proposal — he's against it, though many voters have been telling me they're for it, even in the economically prosperous Carmel. We don't need "gimmicks," Obama said. We need "real solutions." (That's a Clinton line, btw, "we need real solutions, not speeches." Well, the students at IU were smitten, as students everywhere are, and ginning up their turnout is key to Obama success in Indiana.

April 30 at 3:12PM

Indianapolis, Ind.; Carmel, Ind.

Just finished hearing Obama’s “discussion with working families” in Garfield Park in the southern park of Indianapolis. It was a pretty quiet event, and it’s hard to gauge whether the issues raised are representative since there are always preselected crowds at these types of events. But Obama did go out of his way to discuss his — and Michelle’s — “modest” roots, and to note the troubles faced by families trying to finance college with home equity loans. There were questions on education, health care and the treatment of reservists.

He WAS speaking in a relatively prosperous economic zone — I just finished speaking to lunchtime office workers in downtown Indy, and their concerns DID range off the economy and on to the environment. A bit.

Earlier, I was in Carmel (that’s pronounced like the candy, not the coastal town in California). It’s as new as Gary is old. Lots of brand new low-rise office buildings filled with insurance companies, similar in appearance to Silicon Valley. Semi-“new-urbanist” developments are popping up all over. Lots of townhouses with stoops, though all have garages in the back, convenient for car trips to the strip malls which seem to have most of the retail opportunities. Spent some time in a Kroger’s parking lot (there aren’t too many places with high volumes of voters in Carmel), and it seems like it’s certainly more conservative here than in the actual urban Indianapolis. However, there were Democrats, and many were for Clinton, on the “experience” argument. I’m going back to check it out later, and I’ll have some more on the show tomorrow on Carmel.

April 30 at 9:04AM

Lafayette, Ind.

I'm in the Sunrise diner, now, in downtown Lafayette. In between the orders for bacon and eggs over easy, and sausage and cheese omelette specials, there's lots of buzz at the tables around me about the election — a booth of laywers fretting that Rev. Wright will dominate the television campaign in the fall. A couple of farmers over at a two-top, one ribbing the other: "Made up your mind yet? You voting for Obama? Barack Hussein Obama?" The later was a not-so-nice reference to Obama's middle name, which has come up in some (later critiqued) Republican references to the Democratic frontrunner. Though Obama does have a lot of support in this region, fueled by the students at Purdue and the knowledge workers the university produces, there also some skeptics as you move down the economic ladder among whites about his experience. But that isn't across the board. Yesterday in Valparaiso, I met a retired factory worker, a Republican, who's having a pretty hard time eliminating 16 years of Republican Clinton-bashing from his mind. He's for Obama — "because he's fresh."

April 30 at 9:04AM

Lafayette, Ind.; West Lafayette, Ind.

I ended Day One at the Bistro 501 in Lafayette, where Pinotage and duck breast with orange risotto were featured items. The restaurant — in Lafayette's downtown, next to the government building clearly built in an age when the architecture matched its soaring aspirations — was full of Purdue University professionals, as well as management from nearby Eli Lilly and Subaru plants. New economy to Gary's old. These large university towns like Lafayette and Bloomington are probably one of the biggest reasons that Indiana won't be another Ohio for Obama.

April 30 at 6:59 AM

Gary, Ind.; Valparaiso, Ind.; Carmel, Ind.

Leaving Gary's Coney Island restaurant, I drove south on SR 30 to Valparaiso. The boarded-up storefronts gave way to suburban strip malls, the small homes turned into late 20th century suburban homes, and then to farms. I stopped in Round The Clock Family Restaurant in Valparaiso. There were lots of Republicans in this area, many of them dissatisfied with McCain — his age came up a lot — but neither were they happy with Clinton or Obama. The Clinton campaign has been heavily spinning that the whites who live in area are Obama voters because they get their TV from Chicago, his home. Maybe. The people here certainly know more about Obama than in other, more distant states. But I heard the same divided feelings I've been hearing since Iowa on Obama — that he's an agent for change, that he's too inexperienced. Valparaiso gets its current vitality from its status as a Chicago bedroom community, but for much of the last century, area factories pumped money and jobs into this town. There's a famous military magnet company that moved to China that was once here — Clinton often mentions it in her stump speeches.

Even in this relatively prosperous area, economic concerns were rife. I met a carpenter whose renovation work has all but dried up, and a man on disability who is planning to use his tax rebate to pay for a new pair of prescription glasses.

April 30, 2008 at 6:31AM

Gary, Ind.; Lafayette, Ind.

Tuesday, I traveled from the old economy to the new, from the boarded-up facades of Gary — 20 miles from Chicago — to the revivifying downtown of Lafayette about two hours southeast. Gary was a shock. I've never been to New Orleans, but I imagine this is what parts of that city feels like. As I traveled down Broadway leaving the U.S. Steel plant — still in operation but only as a shell of the enormous economic engine it once was — I found what felt like miles of closed stores. Furniture shops, clothiers, jewelers, restaurants — all were boarded up, with their '50s or '60s-designed signs still intact, as in a macabre mid-century museum. The population here once topped 200,000. Now it's about 85,000. I found rutted alleyways, the paved roads disintegrating back to dirt. A whole elementary school boarded shut. And for the first time, people in this campaign talked about not getting enough to eat. One woman even helped herself to the leftover sausage on a friend's plate, vowing not to let meat go to waste. Issues that once loomed large — climate change, immigration — were barely mentioned. Instead, it was raw economic survival.

Andrea Bernstein is The Takeaway's political director.