Newswise — IS RUSH BREAKING THE LAW?Conservative radio and television host Rush Limbaugh is calling for Republicans to cross over and vote in Democratic primaries for Hillary Clinton. His "Operation Chaos" is designed to extend the Democratic primaries in order to damage the party's chances in November. According to Limbaugh's Web site, the hope is that "this keeps up to the convention and that we have a replay of Chicago 1968, with burning cars, protests, fires, literal riots, and all of that. That's the objective here." Indiana Law Professor Pat Baude says it is a Class D felony in Indiana for voters to participate in deceptive crossover voting.
"While it would be difficult to prosecute individual voters, it is a crime for Limbaugh to encourage such actions," he said. "A third party who induces a voter to engage in felonious conduct is, himself, committing a felony." Baude, the Ralph F. Fuchs Professor of Law and Public Service, has served as special counsel to the Office of the Governor of Indiana, and is a member and past president of the Indiana Board of Law Examiners. He occasionally handles test cases in the state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. His most recent book is Judicial Jurisdiction: A Reference Guide to the United States Constitution.
AN "ABSOLUTELY AMAZING MOMENT"For hundreds of years only white men have reached this pinnacle of power -- running as a major party's candidate for the U.S. presidency -- yet most of the talk surrounding the Democratic primary focuses on the potentially negative aspects of a drawn out race. "The historical nature of this election is crucial," says Suzanna Danuta Walters, professor and chair of the Department of Gender Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. "Instead of focusing on the negative, the fighting between the two, we should think about how it's bringing new people into the process. African Americans, women, young people have been energized. They see representatives who look more like them. What we don't want is to downplay the significance of this." Walters said she would like to see Sen. Hillary Clinton deliver a speech about gender, just as her opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, delivered a well-received major address about racism. Misogyny and racism are apparent in the campaign, Walters said, but racist comments have been overtly condemned while misogynistic behavior is tolerated. She also noted the double-standard involving "pastor issues" involving Obama and Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain. Both situations involve pastors who made provocative comments. While the media has been "obsessed" with Obama's former minister, who is black, it has essentially given a "pass" to the controversial white minister who endorsed McCain. "This is a country that is riven by ongoing racism and riven by ongoing sexism in both the private and public sectors," Walters said. "The idea that we're past gender and race, that the conversation is derailing the campaign -- these are hard conversations that this country needs to have."
Walters also holds faculty appointments in the departments of sociology and communications and culture.
INDIANA ISN'T OHIO OR PENNSYLVANIAAs far as the Democratic primary goes, pundits currently assume that Hoosiers respond to NAFTA and free trade just like voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania. This might mislead the national audience, according to Philip Powell, associate clinical professor of business economics and Evening MBA faculty chair at the Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. Indiana's 5.2 percent unemployment rate is lower than 6 percent in Ohio and 5.6 percent in Pennsylvania. Part of this difference is due to Indiana's higher reliance on exports than Ohio and Pennsylvania. Indiana also relies more heavily on inbound foreign investment. In 2006, Indiana ranked first in terms of in-sourced manufacturing jobs and second in terms of in-sourced R&D jobs. In 2007, Indiana bragged the lowest business cost index among Midwestern states. "A weaker U.S. dollar and ability to export goods to Canada and Mexico better insulates Indiana from slower national growth," Powell said. "For many Hoosiers, trade is good and contributes to current and future prosperity. Yes, Indiana is part of the Rust Belt, but its better integration with global industry and a more diversified industrial base means the sun shines brighter than in Pennsylvania or Ohio." On the election, he added: "A candidate that sells protectionist views to win votes may receive a cool reception at the ballot box. A victory in Indiana requires a more subtle understanding of the economics of trade than we have seen in other Rust Belt states." Powell's point emphasizes the need of candidates to uniquely tailor their message to economic conditions that vary across the country. An expert on issues of economic development, Powell each year publishes a forecast for the greater Indianapolis economy.
A LOWER PERSONAL INCOME MAY BE THE ECONOMIC STORY IN INDIANAWhile Indiana's unemployment rate may be holding up better than the national average and better than many Midwestern states, the average compensation per job and personal income per person fall below the national and Midwestern average, according to Tim Slaper, director of economic analysis in the Indiana Business Research Center in IU's Kelley School of Business. The state ranked 33rd in average compensation per job, behind Pennsylvania, Ohio and North Carolina in 2006. Average compensation per job in Indiana has not been growing at a rate that will close the gap, Slaper said. In 2007, Indiana per capita personal income ranked 38th nationally and, compared to Midwestern states, bested only Michigan in growth from 2006 to 2007. "Only a handful of Indiana counties can boast a higher per capita income than the national average," he said. "Most of these are urban and suburban, with Dubois County being the exception. The consequences of plant closings and manufacturing restructuring also are evident in the county-level data." From 2005 to 2006, personal income per capita growth in 10 Indiana counties was less than 3 percent, while Indiana averaged 4.4 percent and the U.S. averaged about 5 percent.
FACTORY JOBS STILL DRIVE INDIANA'S ECONOMYDespite all the campaign rhetoric about disappearing factory jobs, Indiana's economy is still the most manufacturing-intensive in the nation. Even though factory employment is down by several thousand jobs compared to its peak in 2000, Indiana continues to lead the nation in manufacturing's share (18.3 percent) of all payroll jobs and in manufacturing's share (30.2 percent) of the state's GDP, or overall economy. Jerry Conover, director of the Indiana Business Research Center (IBRC) at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, observes that "candidates are pledging to penalize companies that move domestic jobs abroad. Such positions overlook the fact that a large portion of the decline in the nation's factory employment is due to improvements in productivity, which mean factories can produce the same or more output with fewer workers. Moreover, they ignore the major growth in employment generated by foreign-owned firms setting up or expanding operations here." According to a recent IBRC study, Indiana ranks eighth in the nation on the value of foreign-owned facilities, and foreign direct investment accounts for the vast majority of new jobs in the state's automotive and industrial equipment sectors. Approximately 92,000 Indiana jobs are in majority-foreign-owned firms. "Efforts to stem free trade pose a significant risk to this growing sector of Indiana's workforce," Conover notes.
THE CHANGING ROLE OF UNIONSOrganized labor remains a force in campaign fundraising and get-out-the-vote efforts in the Indiana Democratic primary, says Peter Seybold, associate professor of sociology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. But the role of labor is in flux, with the growth of service unions and the shrinking of industrial unions complicating support for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. "Indiana still has a much higher concentration of people in manufacturing than most states do, but a lot of them now are non-union manufacturers," said Seybold, whose research interests include labor and politics and labor unions as organizations. Unions represented more than 40 percent of Indiana workers in 1964, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, declining to 25 percent in 1984 and to 12 percent in 2007, comparable to national figures. Seybold doesn't think either Democratic candidate has been effective at addressing the potent economic issues -- factory closings, the credit crisis, and rising gasoline prices accompanied by huge oil company profits -- that upset Indiana workers, union and non-union alike. "My feeling is, neither one has adequately addressed what you do in this global economy when your industrial base is decimated," Seybold said. "I think they're kind of put in a box. They really cannot come out against globalization even if they wanted to." While both candidates have tried to address globalization by talking about fair trade, he said, it has been more difficult for Hillary Clinton because, during her husband's administration, all stops were pulled out to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement.
WHAT'S A HOOSIER?"Twenty-five years ago we thought we knew. We thought there was a certain 'Indiana Way,'" said James H. Madison, the Thomas and Kathryn Miller Professor of History at Indiana University Bloomington and author of the book The Indiana Way, published in 1986. "Hoosiers tended toward the middle or even conservative side of the politics and culture, we thought. They were bound by common assumptions about not only basketball and pork tenderloin sandwiches but also about gender, auto factories, and politics. Even long ago there were exceptions and contradictions to the Indiana Way. Today, as the 2008 campaign suggests, such uncertainties as to what makes a Hoosier loom larger and complicate our political choices. We're confused here in the Heartland. Perhaps this year we'll figure it all out."
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