Indiana Poses Challenge for Both Democrats

[DeepModem Mom]

WSJ: Indiana Poses Challenge for Each of the Democrats
White Votes Elude Obama; Clinton Needs Delegates
By AMY CHOZICK and NICK TIMIRAOS
April 24, 2008

INDIANAPOLIS -- After six weeks of trading jabs in Pennsylvania, the Democratic presidential candidates turned to Indiana and the lower-income white voters seen as a test of who is most electable in November. Sen. Barack Obama is under pressure to knock Sen. Hillary Clinton out of the race and prove he can connect with working-class whites, while Sen. Clinton must narrow the delegate gap in order to bring in donations and keep her candidacy going....

Indiana, which holds its Democratic primary May 6 and offers 72 delegates, has a large concentration of the working-class white voters whom Sen. Clinton has won over in other states. Exit polls from Pennsylvania showed Sen. Clinton carried white voters by a 26-percentage-point margin. She captured voters without college degrees by 16 percentage points.

A poll of likely voters conducted April 14 to 16 by the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics put Sen. Obama ahead 50% to 45%.

Indiana offers Sen. Obama some advantages. The state borders his home state of Illinois, and about 20% of Indiana's residents have access to Chicago media outlets that have covered the junior Illinois senator for years. Sen. Obama has more money to spend in Indiana, as he does in North Carolina, which also votes on May 6 and carries 115 delegates....The Obama campaign has been running ads in Indiana since the end of March and has opened 22 offices. Sen. Obama held a rally in Evansville on Tuesday and a town-hall forum in New Albany on Wednesday. He has picked up the endorsements of former Reps. Tim Roemer and Lee Hamilton....

The Clinton campaign has opened more than 20 offices across Indiana and has planned a tight schedule of events during the next two weeks for Sen. Clinton, former President Bill Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea. Sen. Evan Bayh, a former governor and Clinton backer, is spearheading Indiana efforts....

Indiana lost 10,000 jobs in February, and has experienced one of the largest statewide losses of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. since 2000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics....On Tuesday, the Clinton campaign put out a statewide television ad focused on bringing jobs back to Indiana. Exit polls showed that 55% of Pennsylvania voters believed the economy was the top issue; Sen. Clinton had an 18-point edge among those voters. "If this discussion is about the economy, as it was in Pennsylvania and Ohio, then Hillary Clinton is going to win," says Jonathan Swain, Indiana spokesman for the Clinton campaign....

Sen. Obama could appeal to Indiana voters by promoting his ability to end special-interest influence in Washington. In one television ad, Sen. Obama stands in front of a shuttered steel factory and talks about how he moved to Chicago to help workers "whose lives were torn apart when steel plants like this one left town," he says. "For decades, politicians have talked about protecting jobs, but the power of Washington lobbyists stops anything from changing."...

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