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It's a deeper shade of red

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  • It's a deeper shade of red

    In Indiana, a state as reliably Republican as can be, Bush backers take exception to the Bible-thumping clichés.


    INDIANAPOLIS — The day after President Bush swept to a second term with what he called "the will of the people at my back," many Democrats gnashed their teeth and e-mailed each other maps describing much of the United States as "Jesusland." Many Republicans, by contrast, felt deeply satisfied and relieved and maybe even wondered what the apocalyptic fuss was all about.

    Here in Indiana, a state so reliably Republican that the outcome of the presidential campaign was never for a moment in doubt, Hoosiers were spared the rancor and passion that characterized the race in the battleground states. Indeed, Indiana seemed a good place to ask Republican voters why the nation's Democrats, many of whom are deeply depressed, should not consider moving to Canada.



    "Pockets of hatred across the United States! Widespread panic if the president gets reelected!" Kim Preston, a 28-year-old staffer in the state Republican Party is expounding on some of what she considers the more ludicrous predictions about the election. Preston is sitting at a conference table in the airy, loft-like party headquarters.

    It could pass for one of your hipper ad agencies. But Preston loves the political life. She says she and her husband, a lawyer who clerks for a federal judge, are "very much public servants."

    Preston grew up on a corn and soybean farm in a Democratic household near Fort Wayne, and does not consider herself a member of the religious right. She is pro-choice in some situations. She is not especially worked up about gay marriage.

    "I struggle with both those issues," she says.

    Preston became a Republican after college, she says, because she is a fiscal conservative and "it just made sense to me."

    She supported the president for simple reasons: "I trust him. I admire his integrity. And I very much admire someone who does what he believes in, even if it's not popular politically."

    This is, basically, what one hears over and over in the suburbs of this city. They trust the guy, know where he stands. They like his values. And by "values," they do not mean his views on gay marriage and abortion. They cite the president's stance on terrorism and Iraq, his passion for lower taxes.

    Stereotypes about the unthinking, fear-motivated, ultra-Christian red state voter do not seem to apply around here. Republicans carefully choose their words to explain why they voted for Bush, what they didn't like about John Kerry and what this election means to them.

    "There's been a lot in the press about morality — exit polls suggesting that 20% of the voters are voting on 'morality,' " says Carolyn Anker, a 37-year-old executive at Eli Lilly, who has hosted Republican fundraisers.

    "I think it's a misnomer to equate morality to gay marriage…. A lot of it comes down to character."

    Anker is sitting in the antiques-filled living room of her spacious brick home in Carmel, an upscale suburb in Hamilton County north of Indianapolis.

    Although Marion County, where Indianapolis is located, reliably votes Democratic and gave Kerry 50.5% of its vote, the seven surrounding counties, Hamilton among them, are overwhelmingly Republican and voted for Bush in numbers ranging from 71% to 75%.

    When asked if she has any Democrat friends, Anker laughs and says, "That is terribly over-simplistic and almost bordering on insulting. I would be concerned if your audience were to think that people in Indiana are terrifically closed-minded or couldn't possibly understand a more liberal perspective because they don't know anyone with a liberal perspective."

    Her neighborhood may be red, but her social circle is purple.

    Anker disagrees with the widespread idea that the country is polarized and thinks the high turnout on Nov. 2 is proof to the contrary. "I think it's not polarized because so many people took part in the process."

    And as to the oft-expressed worries on the left that evangelical Christians will expert some kind of political stranglehold over the second Bush administration, Anker, who was raised Roman Catholic and attends a Methodist church, says: "I think it's too simplistic of a criticism of any administration to say, well, that person is owned by 'fill in the blank.' And the flavor of the month is evangelical Christians. Some years ago, it was union workers. It can be anything."

    On a recent afternoon in Hancock County, east of Indianapolis, Johnathon Willey is sitting in an Applebee's restaurant, reflecting on a very successful election. A 34-year-old lobbyist for the giant health insurer Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Willey is the Republican chairman for his county.

    "People believe in this president," says Willey, who lives with his wife, an attorney, and two bipartisan golden Labs — Chelsea (Clinton) and Eisenhower — in a 105-year-old farmhouse near his wife's family farm in Greenfield.

    "People are fanatical about this president. Not from a religious standpoint. Obviously, we've heard a lot about how this 'moral religious Christian values' was really the deciding factor. And while yes, it did have something to do with it, I think it [Bush's victory] speaks more to the fact that we had a really good get-out-the-vote program and a really good message."

    Here, as in other Republican counties of the state, there's no getting away from one simple perception: The president seems like a normal guy, and by inference, his rival did not.

    "People feel comfortable and trust this president," Willey says.

    "They identify with the fact that he is more comfortable in jeans and cowboy boots than a suit. We all saw a side of him post-Sept. 11, that warmth and compassion, and trustworthiness and steadfastness."

    Willey and others interviewed last weekend don't think it's important to agree with the president on every issue.

    "People just realize they have faith and trust in this president to make the right decisions," Willey says.

    Late Saturday morning in Danville, Jennifer Thuma is sitting in the Mayberry Café, where "The Andy Griffith Show" plays on a continuous loop on wall-mounted TVs. A facsimile of fictional Mayberry's 1962 Ford Galaxy squad car is parked in front.

    Thuma, 34, the director of legislative affairs for Indiana's attorney general, describes Danville, which is in Hendricks County, as "a typical, small Midwestern town: pretty traditional values, overwhelmingly Republican."

    But not too far away, she adds, in Plainfield, there's the Islamic Society for North America. "It's a huge mosque. We have diversity you wouldn't guess at."

    Thuma, a former prosecutor who says she is pro-choice but against gay marriage, has a passion for the Middle East. A decade ago, she spent a year studying in Cairo, and she has traveled widely through the Middle East, including a two-week bus trip through Syria. "I love the people," she says.

    She also has dear friends in Los Angeles, liberal Democrats, entertainment lawyers, with whom she often has spirited political discussions.

    "My friends in L.A. feel so passionately against the president, and I feel so much the opposite," she says. "I think they probably will never believe this, but I truly do believe the president is a good person."

    A couple of counties away, Bill Barrett, 42, is sitting in the conference room of the legal firm where he is a partner, sipping a cup of last night's Starbucks. The office is in Greenwood, which is in Johnson County. A former state court magistrate, Barrett specializes in commercial and probate litigation.

    He believes Bush is the most idealistic president since Woodrow Wilson. "Many Democrats would sneer with derision," he says, "but if you listened to the president's press conference Thursday, he repeated what he has said for a long time, which is that the people of the Middle East, just like the people in the former Soviet bloc, just like the people in the United States, yearn for freedom and liberty and that given the opportunity and the right conditions, they will learn to live in freedom and liberty."

    Barrett, who will not disclose his stance on abortion and opposes gay marriage, was raised a Methodist, but is not, as he puts it, an "active churchgoer." He does not worry about an Oval Office takeover by the radical Christian right, yet he does fret about what he calls the "aggressively secular" attitude he sees on the left. He recently saw essayist Fran Lebowitz on "The Charlie Rose Show" and was distressed to hear her say she doesn't want a man of faith as her president.

    "There's one thing I profoundly believe in, and that's American exceptionalism," Barrett says. "This country is different. This country is a refuge for the 'teeming tempest tossed.' That's the gift of this country. And whether you believe that gift flows from the Judeo-Christian god, or the enlightened ideals of the Founders, or whether you believe it's blind luck, we're different. And people who are scared of George Bush don't believe that."

    He thinks Democrats who grimly joke about leaving the country are overreacting: "The Republic has survived for 216 years since its first election in 1788," Barrett says, "and the politics of the moment have changed direction and gone up and down ever since.

    "Think of the strife between the Federalists and the Jeffersonians…. Think to the time of 1860 when Lincoln was first elected…. Everyone knew if Lincoln was elected, the South would secede. Southerners could not tolerate him. Well, what's next? The Civil War. Terrible time. Country survived it.

    "Nothing like those times exists today," he continues. "You and I are sitting comfortably in a heated, well-lit office, having bottled water and fancy coffee.

    "If you take the long view," he says, "belief in this country should provide some sense of assurance."

    http://www.latimes.com/news/politics...-home-politics
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