Published: August 28, 2008 10:15 pm            

Mark Bennett: Get ready, Hoosiers: Impossibilities are few in 2008

TERRE HAUTE — Plenty of skeptics would tell Carolyn Brown Hodge she'll be wasting her time.

The ride from her Paris, Ill., home into neighboring Indiana to persuade Hoosiers to back Barack Obama will needlessly burn up fuel, doubters would say. Democratic presidential candidates don't carry Indiana, period, they'd remind Hodge.

Those scoffers should've seen what Hodge witnessed Wednesday morning in Denver.

The Illinois delegation at the Democratic National Convention gathered for a breakfast. Hodge, an alternate delegate from Edgar County, sat watching as intense political rivals within that group agreed to embrace each other - literally - at the request of Illinois congressman Jesse Jackson Jr.

Jackson hugged fellow Chicago congressman Bobby Rush and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. Then fiscal adversaries Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Michael Madigan, Speaker of the Illinois House and Illinois Democratic Party chairman, hugged.

Jackson wept.

"He had all of them come up there and hug each other," Hodge said Wednesday by telephone from Denver, "and it was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. And there were tears."

In 2008, impossibilities are few.

"When you have the governor hugging Michael Madigan, anything can happen," Hodge said.

Thus, a fall bus tour of Indiana by ardent Obama supporters, such as Hodge, might help Obama become only the second Democrat since 1936 to win the Hoosier state.

"We'll go door to door," she vowed.

That mission won't be simple. Obama drew almost half - 49.44 percent - of the record 1,278,268 Democratic votes cast in May's Indiana primary duel with Hillary Clinton. By contrast, 320,318 Republicans voted for John McCain. Still, many counties remain GOP hotbeds, and some of the Democratic strongholds, such as Vigo County, heavily favored Clinton, whose legion of fans includes some who still view Obama as their opponent.

After spending the past week at the Denver convention, Hodge thinks she'll come home with a message Hoosiers, and others, will at least want to hear. For starters, Clinton, in her Tuesday night address inside the Pepsi Center, gave her diehards solid grounds to endorse Obama.

"She said exactly what she needed to say," said Hodge, an Obama supporter since his improbable campaign began, "that we need to be unified and go forward."

Such concession to a rival wasn't easy for Clinton, who's won two U.S. Senate terms and watched her husband win a pair of presidential elections. "It's hard to run tough races and lose," Hodge said. "I know. I've been there."

Indeed, it was Hodge's public service career that got her acquainted with Obama. He was an Illinois state senator, and Hodge was president of the Illinois Democratic Women. Their paths crossed in a serving line at a reception in Springfield, the state capital. She was in Springfield, also, for Obama's historic announcement that he would run for president of the United States.

"He is just an amazing individual," Hodge said. "From the first time I met him as a state senator, I knew that he was just one of those special people. He has this charisma, this spark."

She enlisted Obama to meet with chapters of her organization around the state. "He was willing to drive anywhere in Illinois to speak," Hodge explained.

State government work has kept Hodge busy, too. She's the director of rural affairs for Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, and formerly served as community liaison for the secretary of state, member of Illinois' Electoral College in 1996 and 2000, and was a delegate to the 2000 Democratic National Convention. That convention eight years ago sent Al Gore into an election that produced a George W. Bush presidency, and an outcome that continues to stir controversy.

The atmosphere surrounding Obama's nomination in Denver is unlike any of those other experiences, Hodge said.

"The passion is much deeper for Barack Obama than any of McCain's supporters just have," she said. "The passion here is much higher than in [the] 2000 [Democratic convention]."

One of the prime knocks against Obama - his age and experience - are actually reasons Hodge backs him. "I will be 58 in October, and I'm ready to hand the baton to the next generation," she said. "He's what, 47? What's wrong with that? It's not like he's 25."

Thus, when Hodge returns from Denver, she'll use her spare time to canvass Indiana. She maintains a full schedule, anyway, working in Springfield through the week and coming home to Paris on the weekends. "I've got a feeling on those two days, I'll be in Indiana a lot," she predicted.

Sounds as if this rare 2008 presidential race is far from over for Hoosiers.

Mark Bennett can be reached at mark.bennett@tribstar.com or (812) 231-4377.

        

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