Serious question: How did IN become so conservative/republican? Not even Bill Clinton could carry it

[thereismore]

nt

[Tommy_J]

1. I lived there there 40 + years and never figured that out

[KharmaTrain]

2. Mostly Rural...

It's like Kansas in the middle of the "rust belt". While Illinois, Michigan and Ohio are more industrial. Not all of Indiana is conservative...Gary and South Bend (where Donelly is from) is pretty Democratic...so is Monroe Co. (U of Indiana). The rest of the state is rural and red. This was the state where the Klan gained political control a century ago...the wingnut runs deep...

[Greybnk48]

3. I'm really curious about this too.

This came up in a family discussion on election night and everyone was stumped.

[RomneyLies]

4. Well, there was that whole center of the universe for the KKK starting in the 1920's thing. n/t

[gollygee]

5. It's always been like that

I studied language and their speech is more southern than you'd think too. It's called the Hoosier Apex.

http://theamericanmidlanddialect.weebly.com/the-hoosier-apex.html

The Hoosier Apex (as seen in Figure in map above) is one that astonishes linguists. It is located in the southern/central west part of Indiana and a sliver of the south eastern part of Illinois and what it is is that it suddenly sounds like you just crossed into the state of Alabama. The Hoosier Apex is an example of the South Midland dialect; but it goes beyond that even to where it is almost just like a Southern dialect in itself. There have even been recent discussions about how there is even a Hoosier dialect in itself, taking on a Southern drawl and speaking slowly (Herring, 244). It also occurs to me that once when I was in class a peer student of mine had that when he visits other parts of Indiana they always want to know where it is he is from because he speaks a lot more southern than most anyone else in Indiana, and it just may be because he lives in this apex. I have also noticed that people from Indiana generally pick up a southern accent very easily. A phonological thing Herring points out that happens in the apex is that when someone says greasy the s turns into a z sound, like “greazy” (243).

[Greybnk48]

12. This is fascinating!

Another piece of the puzzle.

[thereismore]

13. Very interesting, thanks. nt

[Contrary1]

15. As a Hoosier, I can verify this...

Years ago, when my husband was in the service, we lived in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, California, and Florida.

I was asked over and over what part of the south I hailed from. When I replied that I was from Indiana and not the south, they would chuckle and say "Well; that is the south."

In Florida, not so much. And after just a few weeks in Jacksonville, I found that I had picked up even more of a southern accent.

[frazzled]

6. I grew up there

It was always so. Remember, that Indiana was a stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan:

The Indiana Klan rose to prominence beginning in the early 1920s after World War I, when ethnic Protestants felt threatened by social and political issues, including changes caused by decades of heavy immigration from southern and eastern Europe. By 1922 the state had the largest organization nationally, and its membership continued to increase dramatically under the leadership of D.C. Stephenson. It averaged 2,000 new members per week from July 1922 to July 1923, when he was appointed as the Grand Dragon of Indiana. He led the Indiana Klan and other chapters he supervised to break away from the national organization in late 1923.
Indiana's Klan organization reached its peak of power in the following years, when it had 250,000 members, an estimated 30% of native-born white men. By 1925 over half the elected members of the Indiana General Assembly, the Governor of Indiana, and many other high-ranking officials in local and state government were members of the Klan. Politicians had also learned they needed Klan endorsement to win office.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Klan

But Indiana is getting more purple. Remember that Obama did manage, miraculously, to win in (barely) in 2008. Northwest Indiana (near Chicago) and Indianapolis and Bloomington are far more Democratic, and growing.

[Greybnk48]

10. Interesting. Thank you for posting this.

I'm no spring chicken (and a midwesterner) and I've never heard of this.

[coalition_unwilling]

18. Sen. Birch Bayh hailed from IN too. He was pretty liberal, IIRC - n/t

[Enrique]

7. Indiana was a big state for the KKK

but I can't answer your question, because I don't know why this was. I'm curious as well...

[John1956PA]

8. There are several insurance industry headquarters and regional offices located in the state. (n/t)

[Adamsmith8820]

9. good ol indiana

live here for 35 years...Indianapolis is blue,,the rest of the state is all red due to farm land and people listening to tv instead of doing research on the candidates...its terrible and embarrassing!

[yellowcanine]

11. Well this might be a clue.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Klan

[shrdlu]

14. Good Posts...

Thanks all for the info. I was wondering about this after seeing a map showing red Indiana standing out between blue Illinois and Ohio. Didn't seem to fit.

[montanacowboy]

16. Home of the KKK

go figure

[SickOfTheOnePct]

17. But didn't Obama win IN in 2008? n/t

[Myrina]

20. Yes, because of GOTV in the Chi suburbs

Gary et al are primarily African American and also part of the Chicago political machinery that POTUS came from.

[Myrina]

19. Bible belt + Klan HQ

All during the last 125 years. Need I say more ?

[Brigid]

21. Just pay a visit to Terre Haute.

That'll clear things up.