Jump Ball in Indiana Will Decide It

In a startling political cycle that has seen both John McCain and Hillary Clinton play the role of Lazarus (she three times) and a young African-American seize the position of frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, the most startling, totally unpredictable turn of all is this: the Indiana primary is probably going to decide who the Democratic nominee is.

During the six weeks between the Mississippi and Pennsylvania primaries, a poorly phrased statement and an uncharacteristically weak debate performance by Barack Obama combined with relentless attacks by the Clinton campaign to raise some doubts about Obama as a candidate. Those doubts were most cogently put by George F. Will in a column a week ago. Will's suggestion that Obama could prove to be another Adlai Stevenson sent a shiver down many Democratic spines. Obama has the capacity to reduce that shiver to a momentary fear, but he needs to address the question directly and demonstrate that he is a genuine champion of workers and the middle class.

Obama remains the front runner, and he will almost certainly win in North Carolina on May 6, but he must reassure both voters and party insiders that he is no Adlai Stevenson and that he is the person to lead the Democrats to victory and the country out of the chasm into which the worst administration in American history has pushed it.

If Obama can provide such reassurance, he will win in Indiana as well as North Carolina and the race will be over. If he cannot, he will still be in the lead, but it will become likely that many will see Sen. Clinton as the safer choice in a year in which it should be almost impossible for the Democrat to lose.

In Pennsylvania, Obama demonstrated that he isn't any good at bowling, and Hillary Clinton and her supporters knocked him down like ten pins (and by ten percent). Now the junior senator from Illinois needs to convince his neighbors in Indiana that being president isn't about knocking over pins. It's about knocking down gas prices and the bloated compensation of greedy, incompetent CEOs. It's about helping Americans to keep their "little pink houses" from being foreclosed. It's about obtaining full membership in the civilized world for the United States by providing health insurance for all our citizens. It's about ending a disastrous war in Iraq and preventing a new one with Iran . . . and how well one bowls has exactly nothing to do with these matters that will determine the future of this "troubled land."

Bowling isn't Barack Obama's game; basketball is his sport -- and Indiana's. Hillary Clinton has shown an ability to take on different personas in different states and it would not be surprising if the role she chooses for Indiana is that of Bobby Knight, which would include throwing chairs at Obama.

In Pennsylvania, which shares a long border with New York, Clinton enjoyed something of a home-court advantage; Obama will be playing with a similar small home-court advantage in Indiana, which shares a long border with Illinois.

The worst thing Obama can do now is to go into Dean Smith's four corners offense, holding the ball while trying to run out the clock with a small lead. His best defense at this point is to show what he can do on offense, without being offensive. To impress Indiana voters--and superdelegates--Obama needs to take it to the basket. He should not sit on his lead by resisting another debate with Hillary Clinton; rather, he should be insisting upon another match so he can snatch the opportunity to rebound from his poor-shooting night in Philadelphia, where he found himself playing defense for too much of the game.

As the game clock was running down, with the outcome on the line, Larry Bird always wanted the ball so he could take the last shot and win. Barack Obama needs to show the same confidence now. If he does so, there will be no more overtimes in this multi-overtime Democratic contest.

We know that Barack Obama can beautifully sing ditties that win the affection of "American kids growin' up in the heartland." The question is whether he can win the support of their mothers and grandparents. In Indiana he has the opportunity to close the deal by showing that "this is our country" and that he is, indeed, one of us.

Sen. Obama can achieve this end by using the controversy over his remark on bitter people in the way he did the controversy over Rev. Wright's sermons: as an opportunity to discuss critical areas that define both American ideals and the current reality. His speech on race was brilliant and went a long way toward diffusing the Wright controversy. In the next two weeks, Obama should give similar speeches on class and religion. (He already gave a wonderful speech on the latter topic in the summer of 2006, and I suggest the outlines of a progressive message on religion to combat that Jesus Thieves of the Right in my new book, Grand Theft Jesus: The Hijacking of Religion in America.)

The Democratic nomination is a jump ball in Indiana. The winner will be the candidate who emerges singing "Indiana Wants Me" (with a different storyline from that of the song). If Barack Obama grabs the ball and takes it to the hoop, he'll both win the nomination and put himself on track to win the presidency. If he doesn't, he better watch out for flying chairs.

Robert S. McElvaine teaches history at Millsaps College. His latest book, Grand Theft Jesus: The Hijacking of Religion in America, has just been published by Crown.