Obama won the industrial midwest last night and one of the greatest achievements of the night(and for us a wonderful moment because we live here, near Indianapolis) was the fact that traditionally red-as-red-can-be Indiana went blue.
This showed that a sea change has taken place in parts of the country that never go blue: the industrial, working-class states in the midwest. Indiana has been hit very hard by job losses and the economic meltdown. We knew early in the evening that the state was too close to call, which showed that a change of dramatic proportions was taking place and that McCain was in serious trouble.
The fact that Indiana went blue for Obama is so amazing, so expectations-shattering, it is hard to believe it happened. I am proud of the Hoosier State for getting out the vote (bravo to all of the volunteers who worked so hard for the Obama campaign), for voting blue for only the second time since 1940 (only other blue vote, Lyndon Johnson in 1964), and for hoping that change and better times are possible for the Hoosier State.
Here is some info about Indiana's voting history from 270towin.com:
"Indiana joined the Union in December 1816. It has been primarily Republican throughout its history, and today is the “reddest” state in the Midwest. Since 1940, it has only voted Democratic in 1964, when Lyndon Johnson won a landslide over Barry Goldwater. In both 1992 and 1996, Indiana was an island of red, its borders not touching a single Republican-voting state in any direction. In 2004, George W. Bush defeated John Kerry 60% to 39%."
http://www.270towin.com/states/IndianaHere is an excerpt from the poem "Somewhere in Southern Indiana," written by Indiana's poet laureate Norbert Krapf:
Somewhere in southern Indiana
a boy sits listening to a baseball game
on the radio. It is very quiet
in the house where his mother sits
darning socks and his father flips
through a seed catalogue. The dark
wooded hills surround the house,
which is far removed from the city lights
and baseball games. The only sounds
outside are the barking of a neighbor’s dog
down the road and, occasionally,
the crunching of pick-up tires over rocks.
This boy who listens to the baseball
game never reads poetry, except when
he is required to for his English class.
He would not be interested in what
I write. He thinks poetry must be about
English knights and ladies in castles,
not boys who listen to baseball games,
mothers who darn socks, fathers who
look through seed catalogues.
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