Porter Shreve

For the last six months, several writers from around the country have filed occasional dispatches on the presidential primaries for the Op-Ed page. Well, the primaries are now over. Here, then, are final reports from our correspondents.

West Lafayette, Ind.

SIX and a half weeks have passed since Lake County turned in its votes and Tim Russert proclaimed: “We now know who the Democratic nominee will be.” Pundits have studied the exit polls trying to decipher why Senator Hillary Clinton won the primary here by a mere 2 percent. Some questions can’t be answered: What were the roles of race and gender? Did Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” swing the primary?

Two-thirds of Indiana voters said the biggest issue was the economy. In this state, where American flags fly on every block and the most popular politicians have made their reputations in foreign policy and national security, it’s surprising that only 20 percent of voters called Iraq their top concern. But more than 3,100 Hoosiers lost their jobs in April. A retired railroad worker I talked to from Southern Indiana said he used to be a Republican and a member of the National Rifle Association, but after eight years of George W. Bush he could no longer afford a hunting rifle. He backed Mr. Obama.

It seems he’s not the only “Obamican” I’ve met. A dairy farmer from north-central Indiana, told me before the primary: “I live in a very Republican county. I wonder, if more Democratic ballots are taken than Republican on Tuesday, will the dome fall off the courthouse?”

Well, the dome still stands in Fulton County, but Democratic ballots there outnumbered Republican by nearly three to one. Statewide, nearly 1.3 million Democrats voted in the primary — more voters than supported George W. Bush in 2000.

As an impoverished graduate student I used to think up gimmicky business schemes, like selling deeds to an inch of land in all 50 states, something akin to buying a star for your sweetheart. So I was struck last week when the Obama campaign announced its embrace of an equally improbable “50-state strategy.” Places like Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Missouri, New Mexico, Virginia and even Indiana could become new battlegrounds.

The dairy farmer who worried about his courthouse roof might be right that the state isn’t likely to go blue for the first time in 44 years, but even so, Mr. Obama’s willingness to commit some of his war chest to operations here would help candidates from the top to the bottom of the Democratic ticket. Perhaps that 50-state idea isn’t a gimmick, after all.