Dem candidates go all out in Indiana

Both Democratic presidential candidates are downplaying expectations for Tuesday’s Indiana primary — a contest that could determine the party’s nominee.

Analysts say with the nomination on the line, it’s anybody’s game.

{mosads}Polling remains tight in the race, which comes just two weeks after Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (N.Y.) big win in Pennsylvania. Both she and Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) are pulling out all the stops in this must-win state.

“I think it’s just going to go right down to the wire,” said Jonathan Swarts, a political science professor at Purdue University North Central in Westville, Ind.

Each candidate has opened 28 Indiana offices. Both are also on the airwaves and have traveled nonstop both in the Hoosier State and in North Carolina — which also votes May 6.

Clinton enjoys endorsements from some of Indiana’s big-name Democrats, most notably former two-term governor Sen. Evan Bayh, but Obama has also rallied some state officials to his side. His campaign announced the endorsement of Rep. Baron Hill (D-Ind.) Wednesday.

And while both campaigns are downplaying expectations, the Clinton team argues that Obama enjoys a home-field advantage of sorts because much of Northwest Indiana shares the same media market as his home state of Illinois.

But as was the case in Pennsylvania, the race could be decided by white, blue-collar voters. Indiana manufacturing jobs have taken a hit in recent years.

Clinton has enjoyed recent strength with this demographic, and Obama’s ongoing struggles with the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright have hurt him with the coveted bloc.

The consensus among many Indiana analysts is that the extended Wright controversy has provided Clinton with a momentum boost.

“I think Obama has not necessarily had a good run the last 10 days to two weeks,” said Raymond Scheele, a political science professor at Ball State University.

Because of that controversy, some analysts said Indiana — perhaps the truest battleground state for the two candidates in months — has become a must-win for Obama. The state represents, they said, the Illinois senator’s last best chance to demonstrate to uncommitted superdelegates his ability to win with blue-collar voters.

“If he’s going to be able to win Indiana, he’s going to have to at least close the gap with working-class voters,” said W.R. Mack, a political science professor at the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville. “I think he could then say with some credibility this is over with.”

Those superdelegates could remain on the fence if Clinton can continue to make her electability argument in the face of another blue-collar state win.

“I think Hillary Clinton has a real shot to pull off something to put the brakes on Obama,” Swarts said. “It certainly seems like she has got some momentum.”

On the flipside of that coin, there is also widespread agreement that the state represents a must-win for Clinton if she hopes to continue to stave off a mass swing of superdelegates to Obama’s side, as she has done since March with wins in Ohio, Pennsylvania and the Texas primary.

Mark Kornblau, a former senior adviser to former Sen. John Edwards’s (D-N.C.) presidential campaign, noted that because Obama is favored to win the North Carolina primary, Clinton is in dire need of a win in Indiana.

“She’s trying to set up a two-pronged electability argument for the superdelegates — first, that she has the momentum and second, that she has a lock on the working-class voters Democrats need,” Kornblau said in an e-mail. “With her back against the wall, she simply can’t afford to lose two big contests in one night — especially one in a state as blue around the collar as Indiana. The good news for the Clinton campaign is that an Indiana win is very achievable.”

Both campaigns are getting help from outside groups, which could complicate matters in the closing days of the primary.
Obama enjoys the continued support of the Service Employees International Union, which announced it was going on the air starting this week as part of its “aggressive” get-out-the-vote effort.

But a so-called 527 group supportive of Clinton, the American Leadership Program (ALP), has pledged to go on the air with $700,000 in ads. That action prompted a Federal Election Commission complaint from the Obama campaign Wednesday that challenges the legal status of the group.

“Indiana has a long history of honest, respectful politics,” Nick Kimball, Obama’s Indiana spokesman, said in an e-mail. “It’s unfortunate that Sen. Clinton and her Washington allies are polluting the airwaves with hundreds of thousands of dollars in unaccountable, misleading attacks.”

The Clinton campaign denies any sort of coordination with ALP.

Jonathan Swain, Clinton’s Indiana spokesman on loan from Bayh, said the campaign volunteers have made more than 1 million phone calls to Hoosier State voters, and Clinton “intends to win here in Indiana.”