Shortly before the Indiana Primary, I wrote a diary that made it on the the Rec list called "Something's Happening in Red Indiana". I talked about being a liberal from another part of the country experiencing the bizarre phenomenon of pervasive Republican self-deception in my adopted home-and the strong indicators that even in my part of the world, change was in the air. Since then, Indiana went blue for BHO. I just had an interesting "bookend" experience that illustrates that there may have been a sea change.
A few years ago, someone side-swiped my Honda and my back bumper had to be repaired. If you'll remember, at that time there was a strange little man occupying our highest office, and much of our country was sleep-walking in lockstep with his handlers. I took the car to the body shop, and was subjected to the mass-propaganda tool known as Fox "News" in the waiting room. Indianapolis was then at least a purple city, and I thought it was unpleasant, and at best bad business, to inflict this attack on the grey matter of the majority of their customers. I made the case-I don't remember if they switched the channel, turned off the torture device, or I just dropped the issue after saying my piece.
So, here we are now, Obama's carried Indiana-the first time a Dem has done so since Johnson or Kennedy, and somehow, some bonehead inflicts exactly the same damage on my car as the previous episode. I head off to the same body shop, expecting the same attempted mind-control in the waiting room. I'm prepared to give the same speech, but now armed with the 81 percent likeablility rating for President Obama expressed in Murdoch's Wall Street Journal.
How things have changed. What do I find on the tube, but David Shuster on MSNBC, grilling some Repub apologist, who is lamely trying the rebranding thing. Then there's a story on how Specter's getting whipped into shape as a new Dem by stripping him of his seniority. No complaints from anyone in the room. No comments on my "Yes, We Did" sticker on the Honda.
In my part of town-formerly called Indy's most Republican area-Obama 08 bumper stickers can still be found. But the symmetry of this bookend experience drove home the point. This feels so different, and it certainly feels like the paradigm has shifted. I had planned on moving into a hipper part of town, but maybe I'll think about staying.