Hoosiers.
This article is for Ani - looks like Obama has a fighting chance in Indiana. The Economist reporter has traveled in Indiana and there are some quotes from Martinsville residents. That's a town I will not forget any time soon. A few years ago I got a $300 speeding ticket there on my way from Bloomington going North at night. Fortunately, the sheriffs were nice. They detected my speed as 78 mph in a 55 mph road instead of the 85 mph I was doing when they saw me. 85 mph would have meant an automatic jail for the night. Maybe I had passengers that's why. Getting to Detroit that night would have been impossible...Anyway, here it is.
Swing states: Indiana
Hoosier Daddy?
A state that dislikes change may contemplate it after all
AT MIDDAY in downtown Indianapolis, Kathy Vari leads 50 schoolchildren out of the City-County Building, each wearing a sticker reading “I voted”. It is the first day of early voting in Indiana, and students from the elementary school in Lawrence Township—a political battleground on the suburban fringe—are on a field trip to see the newly opened polling place. They even fill out ballots. The results? Twenty five vote for John McCain, 25 for Barack Obama. That, says Ms Vari, is about what it feels like in Indiana these days.
To many Americans, Indiana conjures up images of corner churches, high-school basketball and endless fields of maize. It is whiter, a bit less educated and slightly poorer than America at large, and perhaps most famous for the Indianapolis 500, a huge car race. “They don’t like change very much” in Indiana, explains John Hurt, a resident of Martinsville, a small town south-west of Indianapolis lobbying to get a proposed interstate highway diverted away from its shuttered main street.
3 comments:
:) Do you do radio requests too?
Yesterday's map had Indiana pink rather than red. Tomorrow's map I think, after the exchanges about the auto industry and health care, will have Indiana being lavender.
McCain reminds me of that guy you sit next to on a bus and regret it for the next two hours, as he slowly bores you to death and won't shut up. Joe the Plumber, bet you're pretty confused, huh?
--Flat Midwestern roads were engineered to drive at least 70 miles per hour on--55 just ain't right.
I only associate Martinsville with connecting from SR37 to SR67 on my way to/from IND.
A nearby Indiana town, Anderson (about 100 miles from Martinsville) used to be middle America. It represented what average America was - the demographics, industry, etc. It used to be the focus of studies as to what America thought.
Well, since the GM started having issues and Delphi closed its plant, the town has suffered immensely. It is representative of what middle America is going through now so I was surprised that The Economist ignored Anderson. I highly doubt that they didn't know about it.
I suspect they had a seminar at IU and stopped by a diner in Martinsville on their way back to the airport in Indianapolis.
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