We matter(ed)!

It’s not often Indiana plays an important role in national politics, at least not in a way that bolsters our reputation. True, our state has appeared before the Supreme Court to defend its stringent voter ID requirements and has also come under fire for sponsoring “In God We Trust” license plates, but both of these instances cause large swathes of the nation to see us as infamous rather than noteworthy. Tuesday’s primary gave us a chance to change that.\nAs former president Bill Clinton mused when he visited Assembly Hall this spring, “For the first time in 40 years, Indiana matters!” Though I’m writing this column without knowing the results of Tuesday’s primary, it already seems certain that Indiana will have been significant. We will have either kept the nomination process open by favoring Sen. Clinton or will have secured an almost certain win for Sen. Obama.\nIt’s flattering that our state has contributed substantially to selecting the nation’s future leadership. With luck, we might soon be better known for making presidents rather than Klan leaders! \nBut even more honorable than having an important role is Indiana’s potential to fill that role well. Our diversity makes us abundantly qualified to select the best candidate.\nWhen people imagine Indiana’s farms, most are more likely to think of breeding pigs than multiculturalism. But, as a recent article in the New York Times noted, “there are at least three Indianas, and maybe four or five or more.” \nThe third of the state south of Bloomington is linked by its culture, dialect and traditions to Kentucky and the South. Much of the rest of the state is covered in farms typical of the Midwest, although it also boasts several larger cities such as Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, which foster many different cultures. Finally, several counties in northwest Indiana, home to Gary and East Chicago, are linked to Chicago’s more urban culture.\nHow does Indiana’s multiculturalism make it an appropriate state to make a key point in the national primary? Well, our state is also a quilt of many regions, rural areas, cities and more than a few separate cultures – a microcosm of America itself.\nThe candidate Indiana chose on May 5, then, must be a good representation of the sort of Democrat who Americans want to elect in November. Some have said Obama is naturally this type of electable Democrat; he does, after all, lead Sen. Clinton in the delegate count. But his is a lead of less than four percent of total delegates, and two of Sen. Clinton’s largest wins, Florida and Michigan, are not even counted in this figure. Thus, a win in total delegates will be small for either candidate and not really representative of the challenges they will face in the fall.\nFor either candidate to prove that he or she is widely electable and truly worthy of nomination, a win in Indiana, a small-scale model of America itself, is a must.