Presidential Impact in the 9th District

From WIBC comes a look at the impact in Indiana, post-primary, of the presidential race (particularly looking at the contentious 9th District race):

The Democratic nominee could have the biggest Indiana influence in the hotly contested 9th Congressional District - where Democrat Baron Hill and Republican Mike Sodrel are likely to face each other for the fourth consecutive election.

Sodrel won the seat in 2004 as President Bush carried the district in a landslide but lost it during the 2006 Bush backlash. Sodrel says, though, that he doesn’t agree with those who believe a Clinton nomination would bring out conservatives in droves to vote against her.

“I tend to believe that there’s not much difference,” Sodrel said. “I know a lot of people would argue that position, but I just don’t think there’s a lot of difference in which candidate is nominated on the Democratic side.”

(Read more after the leap)

If Obama is atop the Democratic ticket in November, that could spark greater turnout in Monroe County, which is home to Bloomington and Indiana University’s main campus, and hurt Sodrel’s prospects, said former state Republican chairman Rex Early.

“When Monroe County has a big vote, Mike loses. When they have a smaller vote, he wins,” Early said. “Obama’s going to have a strong showing around the university, with the professors and the students. I think Hillary would be a much better candidate as far as Sodrel running.”

I don’t think that Hillary is a better candidate to be leading the Democrat ticket, at least from Mike Sodrel’s perspective.

Whatever the Obamassiah gains in Bloomington is going to be more, much more, than lost everywhere else in the 9th (moreso with the elitist and radical Obama than with the merely liberal and disliked Hillary Clinton), and Baron has already made himself so close with the Obamassiah that he will get the worse end of that balance.

Outside of Bloomington, the Obamassiah will be a millstone that will weigh heavily around Baron’s neck, and more than offset the fickle college students that may or may not turn out for the Obamassiah and might not even bother to vote down-ticket at all; there is evidence in earlier primaries that these new voters have not even bothered to vote in down-ticket races.