A Tale Of Terre Haute

I once lived in Terre Haute.

Both of my children were born there, my mother still lives near it. So as you might guess, it still holds a little special place in my heart and enough to check the TH Tribune-Star's website every now and then (mostly for obituaries).

Immediately prior to writing this post, I made my weekly check of the Hautean territory's premier newspaper. Here is something I ran across:

Union-affiliated political activists have been walking door-to-door across Terre Haute the past few days attempting to garner support for President Barack Obama’s proposed budget and to put pressure on Hoosier lawmakers.

About a half-dozen members of Working America, a group affiliated with the AFL-CIO, arrived in Terre Haute on Friday and were still canvassing the city Monday. They urged people to write letters to 8th District Congressman Brad Ellsworth or Sen. Evan Bayh, both seen as possible no-votes on the Obama multitrillion-dollar budget.

“We have a lot of confidence in both [Ellsworth and Bayh],” said Dan O’Malley, assistant director of Working America, which sent seven professional canvassers — mostly from Ohio — to Terre Haute on behalf of the Obama budget. Both lawmakers have “been outstanding for working family issues.”

This is significant for a number of reasons, not least of which is the political leanings of the city.

TH has been and probably always will be Democratic. The overwhelming majority of the local elections, there, are decided in the May Democratic primaries. Mainly because whoever runs on the GOP side is a political unknown, is untested, and/or is usually without much financial support. There are some exceptions, mind you. But overall, I think it's pretty safe to say that the GOP has very little chance of making a lot of headway, anytime in the foreseeable future.

If we analyze this appropriately, we can pretty easily figure out why this is.

Much of this can be traced back to the days of Eugene V. Debs. This is his town by birth and is still his town long after after his death. He has a website and there is even a foundation that bears his name. All one has to do is take a look at the past winners of the Debs Award, and it will tell us just about everything we need to know about it.

Anyway, back to the news story. Back to the irony.

Here, we see Obama volunteers from out of state canvassing a city that is well-entrenched in progressive politics. Never mind that Hauteans have a university and the deep socialist past, these programmed robots are still wasting precious time, money and energy. Instead of being in an area where it is more conservative or moderate, they focus on an area where support should be assured.

TH's U.S. Representative is Brad Ellsworth, a blue dog Democrat. One of the Senators from the state is another blue dog, Evan Bayh. Both are facing re-election in 2010. Both had better know something, they should understand there is a lot of outrage over the performance of the U.S. Congress lately. Both need to be thinking very carefully about how much support they plan to give to Obama, Pelosi, and Reid, from here on out. District voters have elected Republicans before. So it stands to reason, Terre Haute's progressive union hackery cannot always deliver a win.

If I were Team Obama's zombie programming department heads, I would seriously re-evaluate the game in its present state. I would be looking to invade certain select counties in central Florida and there is one I can think of right off the bat. One person's house, in particular, would just love to see have a conversation with them. If nothing else, it would be quite a valuable learning experience. Plus, he is retired and always enjoys the company, unless it is one of his offspring.