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Published: April 26, 2008 10:12 pm
MARK BENNETT: In ‘Campaign 2008,’ the past takes a beating
By Mark Bennett
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE —
What a difference 40 years makes.
Could Barack Obama pull into a Pilot station, buy an RC Cola and a Moon Pie, and slip back out to his car without much fuss this week?
Comparisons between the 2008 and 1968 Indiana primaries are numerous now. In ’68, two U.S. senators — one from New York, Robert Kennedy, and one from the Midwest, Eugene McCarthy (of Minnesota) — were embroiled in a close race for the Democratic presidential nomination. A war was raging. Now, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama are in the same situation.
Yet this Indiana primary is still unlike any other. Take McCarthy’s campaign visit to Terre Haute four decades ago, for example.
“McCarthy drove up, walked down the block, met a few people, made his speech and walked away,” recalled James McDowell, a political science professor at Indiana State University.
By contrast, during the next 10 days, almost every step, handshake and food consumption by Obama and Clinton will be calculated, announced, timed and justified by their camps, and analyzed, scrutinized and criticized by their opponents.
Don’t rule out a scenario like this: “Did Barack really choose a Moon Pie? He can’t pass that off as an innocuous selection of a gas-station snack. It says something more about his character. Moon Pies are made in Tennessee. He clearly snubbed snacks made on Hoosier soil. Indiana voters should be outraged and ask themselves, ‘What does that say about his leadership ability?’”
This atmosphere stands alone in the state’s history.
“Indiana will get more attention in the next days than it’s ever gotten in a presidential election,” said Edward Carmines, professor of political science at Indiana University.
Primary stopped, resumed, changed
It’s doubtful the Indiana General Assembly envisioned this situation in 1915 when it approved a direct primary election for public offices, including the president, Congress and governor. Several other states already had primaries by 1916, when Hoosiers cast their first presidential primary votes. In a harbinger of uncompetitive Indiana primaries to come, Republican Charles Fairbanks and Democrat Woodrow Wilson ran unopposed on their parties’ tickets in Indiana.
By the 1920s, the notorious Ku Klux Klan had exerted control over both parties’ nominations. As a result, Democrats and Republicans voted to scrap much of the expanded Indiana primary process. Hoosiers didn’t resume presidential primary voting until the 1950s. When the 1968 Democratic National Convention erupted in chaos over the choice between Vice President Hubert Humphrey and McCarthy, an anti-Vietnam War candidate, a broader, reformed system of state primaries emerged. Many of those primaries or caucuses occurred well before Indiana’s date — the first Tuesday after the first Monday in May. Usually, the early states determine the parties’ nominees before Hoosiers get their turn.
Since 1972, only a couple of Indiana primary contests were close — Ronald Reagan’s 16,266-vote win over Republican incumbent Gerald Ford in 1976, and Democrat Gary Hart’s 6,078-vote upset victory over frontrunner Walter Mondale in 1984.
That ho-hum legacy, coupled with Indiana’s rock-solid, red-state reputation, caused candidates and their parties to make Indiana a low campaign priority.
Until now …
“This is brand new for us,” said Gerald Wright, a professor of political science at IU since 1981. “We get a taste of what some of the more competitive states get every four years.”
Hoosiers occasionally buck trends
The common thread linking the many uneventful and the few contentious Indiana primaries is the dominance of conservatism. The Democrats must address that reality not only for the May 6 primary, but also in the fall against Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Otherwise, this extraordinary spring campaign will be just a weird blip in history by Nov. 5. Since 1936, only one Democrat, Lyndon Johnson in 1964, has carried Indiana in a general election.
Democrats in Indiana aren’t easily stereotyped, though.
In the 1968 Indiana primary, 328,118 Hoosiers voted for Bobby Kennedy in the Democratic race. A month later, Kennedy was assassinated in California. That November in Indiana, an estimated 1 in 5 Kennedy primary voters backed third-party candidate George Wallace, whose segregationist views were the polar opposite of Kennedy’s liberalism, McDowell explained. What on earth would cause a Kennedy backer to also support Wallace? Both were considered anti-establishment alternatives to the LBJ-Hubert Humphrey administration.
“They were voting against the system,” McDowell said.
Indiana showed flashes of maverick voting again, on the Republican side, in the 1976 primary. Four years before the “Reagan revolution” swept the country, Indiana gave Reagan his first presidential primary victory in a northern state, edging eventual nominee Gerald Ford. In 1984, Hoosier Democrats rejected frontrunner Walter Mondale and gave Gary Hart an upset win.
The Obama camp hopes Democrats here disregard trends on May 6. Indiana’s population includes relatively smaller numbers of black and college-educated folks — two of Obama’s demographic strongholds so far. Yet an Indianapolis public-opinion poll Friday showed him leading Clinton here by a few percentage points. Because both hold similar views politically and ideologically, many Democrats are basing their choice between Obama and Clinton on which candidate makes them feel most comfortable, Wright said last week by telephone from Bloomington.
The impact and hoopla attached to Indiana’s Obama-Clinton choice could lure independents to request a Democratic ballot on May 6, instead of voting among the Republicans, where John McCain has the top of the ticket secured.
“I suspect we may see lots of independents taking a Democratic ballot because they want to have a say in it,” said Jay Kenworthy, communications director for the Indiana Republican Party. “But I don’t think that, by any means, means they’ll be voting Democratic in the fall.”
Indiana may be more vulnerable than the Republican Party anticipates, though. McDowell suspects McCain and the Democratic nominee will be back to campaign in the Hoosier state this fall for a “hotly contested race.” McCain won’t be able to bank on a sure-thing win here, like his GOP predecessors. He’ll need to show he’s different than George W. Bush, the Republican who drew more uncontested Indiana primary votes in 2004 than did Reagan in 1984.
“I think Indiana will be a state in play,” McDowell continued. “I don’t think it will be the first state to go red at 7:01 [p.m.] like it usually is.”
This is a rough election year for the past.
Mark Bennett can be reached at mark.bennett@tribstar.com or (812) 231-4377.
Details about Indiana’s presidential primary
Questions and answers about Indiana’s primary
Q: When is the primary and who can vote?
A: May 6. Indiana does not have party registration, so any of the state’s 4.3 million registered voters may request either a Democratic or Republican ballot. The voter registration deadline has passed.
Q: What about voting before the primary date?
A: Absentee ballots may be cast in person at county election offices until noon May 5. April 28 is the deadline for applications to vote absentee by mail to be received by county election boards.
Q: Who’s on the Democratic ballot?
A: Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, who are locked in a tight race to win the 2,025 delegates needed to be nominated at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August.
Q: How many delegates will Indiana send to the convention?
A: Indiana will have 85 delegates, including 13 “superdelegates” — Sen. Evan Bayh, Democratic members of Congress and other party leaders. Superdelegates are free to vote for the candidate of their choice, although some have publicly expressed a preference.
Q: How are the other 72 delegates picked?
A: They will be awarded to Clinton and Obama in proportion to the primary vote, with 47 allocated in the state’s nine congressional districts based on the outcome in each district. The remaining 25 delegates will be allocated based on the statewide vote. The people who will serve as delegates will be selected during the state Democratic convention in June.
Q: Who’s on the Republican ballot?
A: Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who has won enough delegates to clinch the GOP nomination; former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul.
Q: What other races are on the ballot?
A: The Democrats also have a statewide race between Jill Long Thompson and Jim Schellinger to decide their nominee for governor. Candidates also will be picked in several congressional districts, including longtime Republican Rep. Dan Burton facing GOP challenger John McGoff and Democratic Rep. Andre Carson facing three prominent challengers. Local races on various primary ballots will be state legislative seats, judges and county commissioners and councils.
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