Ricardo J Gonzalez for a Better America

The Indiana primary is happening tonight. It seems to me that there is a lot of hubbub over the State, when it won't actually decide anything. Delegates are split evenly between the candidates, and neither seems likely to win by a large margin. In fact, from the numbers I have seen, it won't matter at all in terms of overall delegates.

So why is this primary important? It's all about the Superdelegates. For the most part, the primaries are relatively unimportant at this point, as even if Sen. Clinton were to win every state that's left by 10 points, she would still not even tie Sen. Obama. The result is that these Superdelegates, get to decide who runs again Sen. McCain. These party members are tasked with finding which of the two would have the biggest advantage against the Republican nominee, and that's what the Indiana primary is really all about.

To win against McCain, either candidate will have to prove that they are able to take votes from what is usually assumed to be the Republican base. Blue collar, lower/middle class, white Americans. What is increasingly interesting to see is how the candidates perceive this voter base.

The first thing that strikes me, is that the Democratic campaigns assume that they (Blue collar white America) are racist. The Clinton campaign made sure that the controversy with Rev. Wright stayed in the news as long as possible. The most obvious benefit that I can see to what should be an unimportant issue is to make sure that everyone is constantly reminded that no matter how he acts,Obama is still a black man. As I've said before, Rev. Wright seems to epitomize many of the "angry black man" stereotypes, and the Clinton campaign wants to make sure people are reminded of that stereotype when they think of Obama. They wouldn't push the issue if they didn't think it would benefit them in the vote totals, so they must be under the assumption that Indiana voters are secretly racist. The fact that Obama was forced to break ties with the Reverend, suggests that his camp bought the idea too.

The second, is that they think Indiana voters believe that the wolf in sheep's clothing, is actually a sheep. I cant keep track of all the places Clinton has claimed to be from, but it seems that she grew up in every small town in the country. Clinton has spent the past few decades living in Governors mansions, the White House, and who knows how many homes with wings larger than my apartment, yet she seems determined to prove that she's a small town, blue collar girl. Whether it's doing shots of Crown (well, sipping them anyway), or talking about how she remembers seeing her dad at work in the factory (that he owned), Hillary wants Indiana voters to believe that beneath her silk gloves lay hardened callouses. Meanwhile, Obama is out shooting hoops, and drinking beers, right out of the can. They're trying hard to make people think that these millionaires are really just one of the guys.


The third, and the only one in which I see a big difference between the candidates, is that the Clinton campaign thinks that they can buy some votes for pretty cheap, About $0.18 on the gallon. While the Clinton campaign is trying to present it as the equivalent of a free vacation, the Obama campaign is siding with the 230 or so economists that are saying this is a pretty terrible idea:

First, research shows that waiving the gas tax would generate major profits for oil companies rather than significantly lowering prices for consumers," they wrote. "Second, it would encourage people to keep buying costly imported oil and do nothing to encourage conservation. Third, a tax holiday would provide very little relief to families feeling squeezed.