Indiana, Ohio would be big Midwest shifts for Obama, if the polls are accurate

When it comes to the Midwestern U.S., particularly those states that have a portion of their boundaries along the Great Lakes, Illinois has always been an exception.

The growing influence of the Chicago suburbs, when combined with the city itself, has turned this state into a reliable support post for Democratic presidential candidates, while most of the Great Lakes states are places where the candidates fight hard for every single vote.

MINNESOTA, WISCONSIN, MICHIGAN. These are all places that gave their Electoral College votes to Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, but not without a fight from George W. Bush.

Meanwhile, Bush got the support of Ohio’s electors in both of those elections, but not without a fight from Gore and Kerry. About the only place in the Great Lakes states where the Republicans historically have been solid is Indiana.

Yet in an example of how bizarre Campaign ’08 is turning out to be (none of the usual “rules” of campaigns seem to apply), Republican John McCain is being given a chance to win in Minnesota and Wisconsin (he recently closed up shop in Michigan).

Even more odd? Democrat Barack Obama could win in Ohio and (of all places) Indiana.

TWO NEW POLLS released this week show Obama leading in Ohio and not getting his clock cleaned in the land of Hoosiers.

The poll conducted by Research 2000 (and paid for by WISH-TV, a CBS affiliate) shows the two presidential dreamers in a tie (46 percent support for each). Only 5 percent of the Indiana electorate has not yet made up its mind (the rest are giving serious support to people like Bob Barr or Ralph Nader).

And for a state with such a rural majority, it is considered significant that 87 percent of those surveyed said they could vote for an African-American person (or even a bi-racial one, like Obama), which is being interpreted as evidence that race will not be a key factor in the Indiana vote.

When it comes to Indiana, the state’s breakdown is roughly Indianapolis in the center as its one major city, the northwestern counties that are an extension of the Chicago metropolitan area and the remainder of the state that has a rural background and has always been the base of the state’s Republican majority.

I REALIZE GARY, Ind., Mayor Rudy Clay was a strong supporter of Obama in that state’s May primary elections (and creating national notoriety for himself by delaying his home city’s vote tallies long enough that Hillary Clinton was unable to declare victory until after prime time slots on television were past).

But I can’t believe Indiana has undergone such a radical shift, or that McCain could be that unpopular in the Hoosier State.

Could this really turn into a case where Illinois’ love for Obama (or at least love for the thought of a Chicagoan in the White House who would be in a position to grant favors and extra support to our politicos) is spilling over into Lake and Porter counties in Indiana so strongly that Illinois could wind up overcoming Indiana’s natural Republican tendencies.

But Ohio may be the bigger surprise.

A POLL COMMISSIONED by the Washington Post and ABC News showed Obama with 51 percent support, compared to only 45 percent for McCain.

In Ohio, the demographic breakdown has always been more along the lines of north vs. south.

Northern Ohio, with urban places such as Cleveland and Toledo, has always had its counties swing largely to the Democratic presidential candidates. Both Gore and Kerry did well in their presidential campaigns.

But rural southern Ohio (which in some places identifies more solidly with the South than it does the Midwest, just like Southern Illinois) has always been a Republican bastion. Even the presence of Cincinnati does not affect the rural attitude, since Cincinnati has always been a city that would have seemed to fit in more comfortably on the other side (in Kentucky) of the Ohio River.

ARE THOSE SOUTHERN Ohioans feeling a change in attitude? Or is 2008 going to be the year that those northern Ohioans, many of whom work (or worked) in industrial jobs assert themselves more fully and overcome the rural mentality of their southern Ohio cousins? It could be, since the Post/ABC poll showed Obama winning Cuyahoga County (Cleveland metro) by a 3-1 ratio of support.

The poll also showed that most Ohio voters were concerned about the economy. Only 9 percent said their top priority was national security or the war in Iraq – the issues on which McCain thinks he is superior and wishes he could focus the campaigns.

That is why McCain talks about “turning the page” on the financial crisis, wishing he could get away without having to talk about the economic problems facing the country. Too many people in this country take the simplistic view that the people who benefited from the $700 million buyout approved by Congress last week were those officials who are natural allies of Republicans in Congress.

Whether it is fair or not (I’m sure there are some Democratic officials who also deserve blame for being “asleep at the switch”), McCain stands to get the blame if the election becomes about the economy.

ALL THE VARIOUS national polls showed Obama swinging into significant leads when the financial buyout became front page news, and staying there (the Gallup Organization poll released Monday showed him leading 50 percent to 42 percent).

Taking Ohio in particular would be a big boost for Obama. If Kerry had won Ohio’s 20 electoral votes in 2004, he’d be president now.

There’s also the fact that Ohio’s mixture of rural and urban (along with large city and small city) voters is considered a good mix representative of the United States as a whole. Political operatives like to make a point of noting every single president elected since 1964 has won Ohio.

Ohio could be the evidence that Obama can reach out to the vast swath of the U.S. population, even more so than his strong support in Illinois, which used to be considered a “bellwether state,” one that during the 20th Century only supported the losing presidential candidate in 1916 and 1976.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Hoosier voters are not giving John McCain the overwhelming support they usually give (http://www.wishtv.com/global/story.asp?s=9133733) to Republican presidential candidates, while in Ohio, Barack Obama seems to have something of a lead (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/06/AR2008100602373.html), albeit not one so large that it couldn’t shift away from him in the next four weeks.