This state and its leadership. What can I say.

[MyshkinCommaPrince]

1. Indiana can be maddening.

I live here and have for most of my life now. I prefer to think of myself as being from Michigan, but that becomes increasingly hard to maintain since I only lived there until I was four. Lived in Colorado for two years and would like to be able to think of myself as a native of that state, but alas. I am a Hoosier.

There seems to be a mean streak running through the mindset of many Hoosiers. I fear the only way Democrats could make many gains here might be to adopt the "punishing father" worldview of their opposition. Too many here seem hung up on punishment. There seems to be an obsession with the idea that others might be somehow "getting away with something". Many voters also seem to be driven by specific wedge issues. I once worked in a factory, where everyone was union. Yet they were all conservatives, Rush Limbaugh reactionaries, and the news clippings some of them posted here and there seemed to show that their main point of concern was guns. Fear of gun regulation makes them crazy regressives. I have some Facebook friends who are like that.

Indiana is a frustrating place. One tries to work for some kind of positive change, but the mass of the population seems determined to move in the opposite direction. It's easy to feel a bit discouraged, at times.