Will Indiana be a 'game-change'"?

Will Indiana be a 'game-change'"?

By Jamie Coomarasamy
BBC News, Indiana



Campaigning in Indiana brings its complications - not least of which is keeping track of the time.
For historical reasons, the Hoosier State contains two time zones.

Parts of the north-west and south-west go by central - or "slow time", as the locals call it, while the rest of the state goes by eastern, or "fast time".

It was something that one of Hillary Clinton's secret service agents seemed unaware of, when we spoke outside one of her events in Indianapolis.

The candidate herself, however, was as focused and on-message as ever.

And the message she has been giving across Indiana has been an unashamedly populist one.

'Misguided strategy'

The New York senator has been laying out her plan to bring down gasoline prices; a mixture of new windfall taxes on big oil companies and no gas taxes - over summer, at least for consumers and business owners.

Barack Obama calls it a misguided, short-termist electoral strategy.

He has seized on the fact that the idea has the support of the Republican nominee, John McCain, and has labelled it a "Clinton-McCain plan".

So whose vision will convince the voters? And how important will a victory be in Indiana - a state which last held a significant primary 40 years ago?


Should Mr Obama win in Indiana... he will have stemmed the tide of recent defeats


The first is hard to judge.

Opinion polls place the two rivals neck-and-neck, but - as you travel around the state - you are repeatedly told how hard it is to give a single message to Indiana's voters or, indeed, to get a single message from them.

Not only are there two zones, but different regions of the state are influenced by the big cities in the neighbouring states.

Cincinnati, Ohio in the north east, Louisville, Kentucky in the south-west and in the north-west, Chicago, Illinois.

It is a Mid-Western mosaic.

Shock victory?

That Chicago link could help Barack Obama.

The Illinois senator's ties to the city may act as a counterweight to the advantage which Hillary Clinton might be expected to enjoy with the region's blue-collar workers, who are still smarting from the loss of more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs in the state since 2000.

They have been the kind of voter she has courted to great effect in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania.

And the significance of Indiana?

Hillary Clinton has been speaking about next Tuesday's two primaries - Indiana and North Carolina - as "game changers" and, in a sense, they could be.

If she wins in Indiana and pulls off a shock victory in North Carolina, where she trails in most polls, the sheen will have been removed from the Obama campaign.

A double win would confirm that the Clinton victories in Pennsylvania and Ohio did indeed mark a change of momentum.


A double loss for Senator Obama, on the other hand, at the end of a period marked by the re-emergence of his controversial former pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright, would re-ignite the debate over his electability.

Should he win in Indiana, however, he will have stemmed the tide of those recent defeats.

His front runner status, which he has earned by winning more states, votes and delegates than his rival, would regain its legitimacy.

To see how far the game has really changed, though, you will have to look to the super-delegates - those party officials who can support whichever candidate they choose at the National Convention in August and whose votes are likely to decide the contest.

Hillary Clinton's only plausible path to victory, at this point, involves convincing them that she is the best-placed candidate to defeat John McCain in November.

If those super-delegates, yet to reveal their hand, desert either candidate in large numbers, the game will not just be changed.

It will be over.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7381471.stm