Friday, May 02, 2008

Jump Ball at the Hoosier Primary

I can’t believe it! At long last, Indiana matters during the national campaign season. We’re in the news every day. We Hoosiers have been crafty, too, not tipping our hand as to whom we favor. We’ve made Indiana a real battleground state, forcing the candidates to pour ad dollars into our communities in a despairing sort of Vegas binge. Here in the second congressional district, we’re a battleground within a battleground.

And permit me to announce loudly that I’m an “undecided voter.” You guessed it: a battleground within a battleground within a battleground, the center of a political universe in which not knowing what you want makes you royalty.

“Sorry, Mrs. Clinton, I have dinner plans with Obama tonight.”

“Oh, dinner was great, Mr. Obama, but Saturday’s simply out of the question. Hillary’s taking me bowling. And then we’re doing dollar shots.”

I say “dollar shots” and not martinis because I’m what the pundits have taken to calling a “downscale voter,” by which they mean a Wal-Mart shopper, although it could also mean that along with my buying power, my sense of self-worth and hope for the future have been downscaled over the last seven years, making me a bitter white man.

Therefore, I can lure Clinton while playing hard to get with Obama. But I keep Clinton guessing, too, because I’m also, paradoxically, an upscale voter, not because I’m rich, but because I have elitist tastes that, unfortunately, I can’t afford to indulge.

Well, all of this attention would be very sweet indeed, were it not for the fact that – after Pennsylvania – people everywhere, even in the wild-dog-pack media, are exhausted. Here we are at the dead-end of a sacrificial Democratic campaign, and the fact is (let’s face it) the coastal media consider Indiana the Midwestern joke state, like Idaho in the West and Mississippi in the South. Remember how the Maryland, D.C., and Virginia primaries were affectionately dubbed the Potomac Primaries? No one has even bothered to notice that Indiana and North Carolina make up what should be called the Basketball Primaries. The media seems to resent our new-found importance.

My great fear is that Wednesday morning, when this is all over, the rest of the country will wake up and say, “Well, that was a huge waste of time!” They say we’re a crucial state, but that’s what they said about Pennsylvania, and before the night was out everyone was saying it didn’t matter.

So, here’s the plan, something to keep us in the limelight. If you plan to vote in the Democratic primary, link up with another voter, and one of you vote for Clinton, the other for Obama – you know, regardless of which candidate you actually prefer. The only way to remain relevant is to stay undecided and to push this competition into overtime. This is important to me. Right now, when I make that 3 a.m. phone call, both candidates pick up right away, because they need my vote. It has been so wonderful that I can no longer bear to think of how things used to be, when I was ignored and shunned while my friend across the way in Michigan was being wined and dined and wrote to me every day to tell me how great it was to be loved.

Hoosiers need love, too!

Broadcast by Joe Chaney on May 02, 2008
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