Senator Barrack Obama made 40 visits to Indiana during the primary election campaign for president. He is now scheduled to make his second Indiana stop of the general election campaign.

It just so happens that the next stop will be at Concord High School in Elkhart County on Wednesday, August 6th.

On one hand, the national candidate is treading where a lot of local democrats fear to go.

In Elkhart County this fall, there will be at least five uncontested county-wide races – due to a lack of participation on the part of Democratic Party candidates.

“From that point of view, we know that we’ll still hold a majority of the offices,” said Elkhart County Republican Party Chairman Dale Stickel. Stickel said Republicans want to “continue our monopoly on that.”

While Elkhart County has a strong reputation as a Republican stronghold, in 2008, it also has an economy that has been weakened by high gas prices.

“Anytime there’s any hiccups in the economy we typically feel it more exaggerated here,” said Stickel, who still summed up Obama’s visit by adding, “I think he could spend his time better elsewhere.”

Arguably, no where else in the nation have workers suffered more damage from high gas prices than in Elkhart County.

Senator Obama will come to Concord to talk about his energy policy, according to Indiana Campaign Communications Director Jonathan Swain. “Talking about his plan to provide an immediate energy rebate to Americans who are struggling with high gas prices. Create five million new green jobs and eliminate our need for middle eastern oil over the course of the next ten years.”

Obama doesn’t seem to care that over the course of the past four decades, Indiana voters have gone Republican in their presidential polling.

“Seems he’s taking a high risk strategy to run in states like Indiana, spend his finances here and so we’ll have to see whether that works out for him in the long run or not,” said Republican Chairman Stickel.

Indiana State Representative Ryan Dvorak, (D) South Bend is an Obama supporter. “Right now the Obama campaign has at least 15 offices open in the state and they plan to open about a dozen more,” Dvorak said. “Meantime the McCain campaign doesn’t have any.”

Dvorak says that McCain has been “ignoring” the state.

By the same token, Obama seems to be ignoring the fact that Elkhart County is firm republican turf. He is said to be running a campaign that is inclusive, and unconventional.

“Obama’s not saying I just need to get 271 electoral votes,” explained Dvorak. “I’m going to try to bring everybody and all these states on board cause we need to move this country together as a whole.”