To the extent endorsements matter one way or another, this is a good one for Obama. Jonathan Weinzapfel, mayor of Evansville, endorsed Obama. Weinzapfel is a popular mayor, he is considered a real up-and-comer in terms of Indiana Democrats, and Obama is probably weakest in southern Indiana.
Yeah, that was a big one, even if a little expected. It’s been a bit of a secret that Obama is actually doing better in many parts of Southern Indiana that the rest of the media believes, just from talking to people.
Interesting….My in-laws are all from Evansville. Can’t picture them jumping on that bandwagon. Of course they all probably think of McCain as too left-leaning.
Yeah– I wish my Lafayette political leaders had kept their powder dry and NOT jumped off the cliff with Hillary. UGH.. Evan Byah suck-ups
Obama was at IU Southeast in New Albany this afternoon. I wish I could have gotten off work to get over there. This has turned out to be the most interesting presidential elections I can remember. Evan Bayh’s endorsement of Hillary has been running on Louisville television stations for the last several weeks. I always liked Evan Bayh but have to disagree with him on this one. It’s hard to understand how Hillary can make the argument that Michigan and Florida could seat their delegates since all of the candidates knew going in that the results of those two states would be nullified since their primaries were held prior to Feb. 5. I heard a good analogy to this this evening on MSNBC, something to the effect that seating Michigan and Florida at this point would be like a baseball team trying to include their spring training games in the regular season in computing the W/L percentage, I have to agree that is an apt comparison. It’s really hard to understand how Florida and Michigan allowed this to happen. It’ll be interesting here in the Louisville TV market to hear all of the ads with the Indiana primary on May 6 and the Kentucky primary on May 20. Perhaps one good thing to come out of all of this will be that in 2012, either the DNC will change the rules for early primary states or that states who break the rules will learn that there are consequences for thumbing their noses at those rules.
I guess we’ll see all the people I’ve been talking to in southern Indiana are backing Clinton.
I’ve been phonebanking in Perry County, asking if they have a preference. Through 20 phone calls, the words “Clinton” or “Hillary” haven’t been spoken. Not once. So far about 1/4 are voting for Obama, 1/4 are leaning Obama, 1/4 are undecided, and 1/4 don’t intend to vote.
Of course, if you ask Hillary, she would say half aren’t voting for Obama, and call it a tie.
Then again, these phone lists tend to be targeted toward likely voters, or possible pickups for the candidate. Maybe we’re targeting those calls a bit too accurately, and preaching to the choir.