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By BRIAN A. HOWEY
NASHVILLE, Ind. - I cringed when I read the New York Times on Thursday. There, on page A20 under the headline "For Indiana Voters, talk of change may fall flat," were quotes from Karen Lasley of Kokomo, who said, "We are manufacturing workers, farmers, beer drinkers, gun owners and pickup drivers." Or this one from Brian 
L. Thomas: "Saying you’re ready to change is probably not the best or only thing you would want to say around these parts."
There is no doubt that we have our share of beer drinkers and gun owners. I, in fact, drive a Ford F-150 (without the gun rack). But this notion that we are a a stasist state - change resistant - is a stereotype the national media might be inclined to latch on to … because it’s easy. The national news media likes to do easy things, like covering shark attack stories that are essentially meaningless to 99.9 percent of the population. They make for sensational news and are relatively easy to tell, but they don’t really explain why things happen or don’t.
The irony is that these remarks came from Kokomo, a manufacturing center that markets itself with the slogan, "City of Firsts." And the reason for that is a little over a century ago, a local entrepreneur named Elwood Haynes began rattling around the city’s streets in one of those new-fangled horseless carriages. While Henry Ford gets much of the acclaim for inventing the automobile, the fact is that Haynes and Indiana lead the way. At the turn of the last century, our wagon works and bicycle shops from South Bend to Indianapolis became places of profound innovation.
Want to talk about change? How about Philo T. Farnsworth, another eccentric from Fort Wayne, who had a very strange lab in his basement and helped bring to the world … television. Or how about Wabash, Ind., which became the first electrically lit city in the world? 
Hoosiers have made all sorts of other contributions that changed the world, like 2 percent milk, the Coca-Cola bottle, tomato juice and Alka-Seltzer (born in the Elkhart Truth newsroom for an editor with a peptic stomach). The Bloody Mary wouldn’t exist without Hoosier intellect. Indiana broke the Big Ten color barrier and was home to the first African-American female millionaire (Madam Walker). Three years ago, a woman - Danica Patrick - came within an eyelash of winning the Indianapolis 500, and might be favored to win it this year after becoming the first woman to win a major series race earlier this month. We’ve had our first two consecutive female lieutenant governors and there’s a decent chance we’ll have our first woman gubernatorial nominee on May 6.
Even when Indiana lost its way - like when the Ku Klux Klan won control of the governor’s office and many city halls eight decades ago - progressives sprung into action. A series of newspapers commenced publishing and systematically outing the bigots in public fashion. A brave prosecutor from Indianapolis stood up to Klan leader D.C. Stephenson and won a murder conviction that killed the movement.
Indiana is home to the Abilene Project - Internet 2 - and leads the way in nano-technology and human genome research. We once manufactured a lot of potato chips, but that’s given way to the making of micro chips. We make things like orthopedic knee replacements and medicine-coated heart stents.
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This is our history, but our recent past is full of change. In the last three election cycles, Hoosier voters have dismissed a sitting governor, the mayor of Indianapolis (along with over 40 percent of other incumbent mayors last year, including the mayor of Kokomo), the president of the Indiana Senate, the Senate Finance Chairman. Four congressmen have lost re-election bids. The Indiana House has changed party control.
Yes, we’ve switched to Daylight saving time (almost always the first question from a New York or Washington producer is, what time is it out thar?) We’ve got a fully-funded 10-year highway construction plan when states like New Jersey are facing an infrastructure crisis. We’ve produced statesmen like Sen. Richard Lugar who consolidated city and county government in Indianapolis and is has since helped carve up the old Soviet nuclear, biolological and chemical weapons arsenal, and congressman Lee Hamilton.
If you are smart enough, logical enough, listen, lay out the facts and don’t take us for a bunch of Hoosier hucklebucks, change can happen here. It does happen here; often in profound ways that change places like the East and West Coasts and beyond. It’s just not always the easy story to tell. There are many, many dynamists in our midst. Our voters are going to turn out in record numbers to try and elect the first African-American or female presidential nominee on May 6. That is a change our state is embracing.
Howey is publisher of Howey Politics Indiana, based in Indianapolis. His weekly column runs in 25 Hoosier newspapers, reaching more than 250,000 readers.
Tags: Brian A. Howey, D.C. Stephenson, Elwood Haynes, Lee Hamilton, Madam Walker, Phil T. Farnsworth, Richard Lugar
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This entry was written by and posted on April 26, 2008 at 10:58 am and filed under HPI Weekly. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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