Why Indiana is so conservative ?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Indiana is so conservative for one simple reason:

It's the south, without the African-Americans.

Admittedly the northern lake area counties are part of the North and thus make Indiana a little closer to the center than the deep south (Carolinas, Georgia minus Atlanta, ala. , miss. , etc. ) if they all of a sudden lost all their African Americans.

Ohio and Illinois is much the same but they have far larger areas where the white folk are northern white folk, rather than southern white folk. Sorry if that seems offensive, but there really isn't a better way to put it, each minority type varies somewhat by region but caucasians vary wildly by region, some whites are new england liberals, and some are bible belt conservatives and the midwest is where they mix .

My theory on the Klan being so strong in Indiana is that they found it to be a haven of like minded people without too many of the people they hated (er ... still hate) being around.

This sounds about right. There certainly are southern whites who live in the North, and visa versa. The suburbs of Chicago fit in with the North, but most of the state fits in with the South.

What I find interesting is why is the Fort Wayne area so conservative. I've never been there, but I didn't think it was at all southern.

I don't think Ill. (w/o Chicago) and Ind. are comparable politically. Gore would have still won Illinois without Chicago.

As Kghadial said, IL goes to Bush in 2000 without Chicago or Cook Co. Without Cook, Bush wins 1,484,591 to 1,308,041, a comfortable margin. If only the city of Chicago is removed, Bush still wins by 1,862,189 to 1,834,305. All Democrats know they need a big margin in Cook (Gore was +750,000) to offset the rest of the state.

Where did you find these numbers ?

A lot of states vote republican outside their big cities. What would be New York without New York ? Republican ? (frightening)
If you take Philadelphia out of Pennsylvania, is Pennsylvania becoming "solid Bush country" ?

Thank god for the big cities  

Gore won upstate NY with something like 52%.

Indiana is conservative because it's major city, Indianapolis, is much closer to Cincinnati than Cleveland or Chicago. Those keep Ohio a swing and Illinois solidly Democratic. Both states also have lots of union areas, Indiana relatively doesn't. They also border Democratic areas, Illinois with eastern Iowa, Ohio with western Pennsylvania. Indiana is basically what you get if you take all liberal elements out of the midwest.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

also, I think comparing Indiana to the south is innacurrate. While it may share the same social conservatism as the south, it is not the same politically or culturally. The strip running across Kentucky is much like the south and was heavily Democratic in the "solid south" days, but the Corn Belt like Al has always mentioned has ALWAYS been Republican. But let's backtrack to the 1860's. Back then, the whole Midwest was Republican. Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and even Minnesota were all Republican strongholds (although Minnesota and Wisconsin have always been pretty progressive states, the Teddy Roosevelt brand of Republicanism is light years away from the current. I would still consider these states to be liberal. Woodrow Wilson, the most progressive President of the era [despite his terrible racism] almost won Minnesota and let's not forget Robert LaFollette.) Indiana was actually the least Republican state of the region and basically a swing, due to the southern strip. Then during the New Deal, all the other states that I mentioned started to switch. Indiana was just left behind, probably due to the fact it wasn't as industrial heavy as those, and has always been more socially conservative.

So in a way, Indiana is much like Arkansas, Louisiana and New Hampshire, it just didn't change with the rest of the region. However even those states are starting to fall in line, and I don't see the same happening to Louisiana.