Obama Town Hall in Elkhart

Obama Town Hall Meeting in Elkhart
Barack Obama held a Town Hall meeting at Concord High School this morning. I heard about it on the news at my Mom’s house last weekend. To my surprise, a couple people in my family mentioned their interest in going. (I don’t think anybody did though; it sounds like there was a lot of demand for tickets.) Looking at the coverage today, the media seemed to be mostly interested in Evan Bayh’s presence and whether a VP decision was imminent. Personally, I want to know more about what Obama said and how the locals reacted to it. Several members of my family work in the RV industry – hell, I myself worked at Coachmen throughout college – and I know that their companies have been hit really hard this year. Gas prices and the economy were a constant subject over the weekend. When I left the US nine years ago, gas in Indiana was well under $2/gallon. Now it’s more than twice that. The only way to get around is by car (unless you’re Amish). My grandpa went out Saturday morning to get a bag of sweetcorn from one of the local farmers, and he came back indignant at being charged 50c an ear. (I was surprised too, until I remembered that tractors need gas too.) So yeah, this is an area that has really been hurting lately, and I was glad to see that Obama was making a point of stopping there. People think of Indiana as such a Republican stronghold that it would be easy for the Democrats to not bother. Things are changing though, and I think Hoosiers are a lot smarter than the GOP gives them credit for. The fact that Obama wants to understand their problems and listen to their issues… that’s gotta count for a lot.

But man, the whole tire gauge thing is really ridiculous. I agree, it’s like McCain’s supporters really are “proud of being ignorant”.