I have a lot of knowledge here, but my steam has been taken by others who posted earlier.
I'm the only active member of this forum (sorry JCL
) who lives in southern Indiana. Southern Indiana is not part of the Rust Belt. I consider Southern Indiana to begin a little above I-70.
In my neck of the words, we'll vote Democratic often at state and local levels, much like Kentucky. But we are very reliable to the GOP in national elections.
Even here, unions are pretty strong, but what gets people going is that they're evangelicals, aka, they're big on social issues. Issues like gay marriage and abortion largely keep IN in the GOP column. Honestly, outside of Marion County (which isn't too Democratic), and up around Chicago (which I honestly don't consider part of Indiana, Indiana is pretty much a bunch of farmers.
As to Obama - he only won in 2008 because he spent money here and McCain hardly did. Obama also visited the state; McCain didn't. I promise you, had McPalin made a couple stops here, he would have won it.
