Hoosier Daddy Now, IN? Mwah-ha-ha!

I spent today having horrible visions of a runaway victory for Hillary Clinton in Indiana. My fears have foundation: I was born there.

The maternal side of my family resides there.

They terrify me.

I've never delved into geneaology for fear that I'd discover that the fuckwittery extends back multiple generations, and that the family myth that a particular tree where a particular gang was hanged truly was named for my relations.

I view Indiana through the prism of my family, and it ain't pretty. We boast a fine cadre of racists, criminals, bigots, drunks, and raving lunatics (sorry, Mom, but you and I both know it's true). My mother is about the only rational one of the lot, and I imagine that's because she spent so many years in Arizona.

When you hear me refer to my stepmother as Mom, it's not because I'm ashamed of my birth mother or playing favorites. I'm just trying to shield my battered psyche from the fact that my mother's side of the family sports a man who tried to rob a bank so he could buy a boat and become a pirate in the Florida Keys. I shit you not.

You will excuse me, then, if my opinion of Indiana is somewhat skewed.

You'll forgive me for thinking that Indiana would go to Clinton in a landslide, because the good heartland folk like my maternal family have just now stopped using the n-word in mixed company, and are the very definition of those "uninformed voters" who are likely to fall hook, line, sinker, pole and fisherman for prima facie idiotic ideas like "Let's all have a gas-tax holiday! Screw the economists - they're dirty rotten elitists!"

Many members of my family likely don't know what prima facie means. That's why I've felt compelled to include a link.

I once wandered through a mall in Terre Haute wearing headbanger clothes and suffering a headcold, and watched shoppers scatter as if they were about to be attacked by a satanic coke fiend when I sniffled.

Further examples could be provided, but I think you have enough at this point to understand my jaundiced view of my birth state.

So you can imagine my shock and delight when, rather than getting soundly trounced by my family's fellow-travellers, Barak Obama battled back from the kind of press that should have slaughtered him and very nearly beat the living shit out of Clinton. He lost to her by less than 1 point.

Incredible.

They didn't all fall for the gas-tax holiday scam. They didn't all go for the Republicon-clone. A hell of a lot of them actually voted for a young, liberal African American.

In-fucking-credible.

I'm probably not giving them enough credit. Indiana seems to have developed a brain since I left.

Now, I'm under no illusions. I can almost guarantee you that Indiana will vote McCain in the general election. But I'm still gonna gloat.

And hell, who knows, maybe the Hoosiers will look at John "Am I Senile Yet?" McSame and say, "You know what, no. We're going to vote hope, not hoax."

Go for it, Indiana! Grab yourself a latte and join the opinionated elite!