The campaign in Indiana in 1916 was a cross between a comedy and a tragedy. A political battle had never before been so miserably mismanaged in the history of the state accustomed for half a century to fierce fights. By the middle of the summer the wiseacres of the east had lightly eliminated the state from their calculations and had busied themselves with plans for re-electing the president without the electoral vote of Indiana. The leaders at national headquarters predicated their pessimism concerning the state on the extensively advertised strength of the Republican state organization, and the unquestioned demoralization of the Democratic party in Marion county (Indianapolis). In the summer of 1915 Senator Kern had shared in this pessimism until he began his journeys out among the people throughout the state, and it was the common observation of veteran campaigners of conservative judgment that they had never in all their experience encountered among Democrats such enthusiasm for the president, or found among Republicans so many who were openly expressing their intention to vote the Democratic ticket. Comparing the state of feeling among the masses of the people with that prevalent during the campaign of 1904 preceding the overwhelming Republican landslide there was ample justification for the feeling that the state was ripe for a landslide to the Democrats. Where one Democrat declared his intention to vote for Roosevelt in 1904 there were twenty Republicans who were making no secret of their intention to vote for President Wilson in 1916. The sentiment was strong--all it needed was crystallization, organization, direction.