Obama's Inroads

I can tell that the Obama campaign is reaching people that the Democratic Party hasn't been reaching. I need look no further than my own neighbors, a firmly Republican stronghold. Look at the returns from my home precinct, Delaware #3, in 2004:

Bush = 65.7%
Kerry = 32.8%
Badnarik = 0.9%

Link to Presidential results for Delaware 3.

Daniels = 66.7%
Kernan = 32.5%
Gividen = 0.8%

Link to Gubernatorial results for Delaware 3.

Notice that the results were almost identical, as relating the presidential and gubernatorial results by each party's candidate. That's going to change.

Now, obviously no votes have been counted yet, but my visual clues are the yard signs. I like observing yard signs off the main drags, because the parties and campaigns fill the right-of-ways with the things. I prefer to look at the residences themselves, where the property owner paid the money to get the sign, and put it out there for the world to see.

I did a count of signs in my neighborhood today, because it seemed like I was seeing a lot more Obama signs than I saw of Kerry back in 2004. Here's the tally:

Obama sign only: 38
McCain sign only: 15
Thompson sign only: ZERO
Daniels sign only: 55
Obama & Thompson signs: ZERO
Daniels & McCain signs: 53
Obama & Daniels signs: 3
Barr signs: zero
Horning signs: zero
Weingarten: 1
Burton signs: 3

What to make of it? Certainly, the Jill Long Thompson campaign is completely moribund. Either nobody is supporting her, or her campaign hasn't gotten signs made or distributed yet. In any case, moribund.

But how about the Obama and Daniels signs together? In Fishers! I have to get some pictures of these.

I think this little survey shows that the Republican base is very satisfied with Mitch Daniels as governor, but I sense a lot of buyer's remorse on John McCain, or plain alienation by McCain. The man has no real ideology to speak of, just this 'maverick' thing, which seems to be on all non-military subjects little more than a panic button that screams, 'DO SOMETHING! ANYTHING!'. That doesn't inspire anything but uneasiness, even for regular Republican voters.

If this is going on in a precinct that reliably goes 65% Republican (It also did in the 2006 Secretary of State race, Rokita 65.7%, Pearson 29.2%, Kole 5.1%), I can only imagine how precincts across America that have greater Democratic leanings are going to tilt greatly towards Obama on November 4.

The lack of anything but Obama signs shows that the Democratic organization is still very thin here. Now, that stands to change significantly. As the Obama campaign inspires people to work in his Fishers office and to put up his yard sign, surely it will yield future candidates.

As for the Libertarians, the Barr signs are available. I'll be getting one soon enough, as the Indianapolis area coordinator for the Barr campaign just got them in. I wish I had seen some anyhow.

The Battle For Jesus

It seems that politically, botht he right and the left are very keen to claim Jesus as their own. Bible verses are cited by both. Each claims its' righteousness.

Today, Michael Gerson's Washington Post column does something new: It proclaims Jesus not a libertarian.

It is true that Jesus was not a political activist; he joined no party and issued no Contract With the Roman Empire. But it is a stretch to interpret his personal challenge to the rich young ruler as a biblical foundation for libertarianism.

I'm not aware of anything in particular from my fellow libertarians that caused this statement's issue. I know that Bob Barr considers himself a Christian, but that's not the same as a crusade to claim Jesus as an exemplar for my favored political philosophy.

The Libertarian Party does claim some deeply religious individuals among its' notables. Here in Indiana, I can think of Dr. Eric Schansberg, Kenn Gividen, and Andy Horning as prime examples. Schansberg has done what Gerson is doing here, with his 2003 book, "Turn Neither Right Nor Left".

I think Schansberg's effort was far more justified than Gerson's. I mean, how many libertarian claims on Jesus have you heard lately? Compare that to the number on the right, especially. Based on Gerson's bio, I can't help but wonder if the man is simply firing a pre-emptive strike on Bob Barr on behalf of John McCain. His closing statement seems to suggest it:

For millennia, artists, thinkers and politicians have shaped their image of Jesus, often into a mirror image of themselves. But the goal of Christianity is to allow Him to shape us, not the other way around. And just as Jesus the leftist revolutionary is a distortion, so is Jesus the libertarian.

This seems like it's coming from out of nowhere. Am I missing something?