UPDATE: Is this for real? The campaign says no, but other mainstream outlets say yes. You be the judge. I’m still pretty skeptical of the original source.

The Nashville Post (the who?) has set off a media frenzy by reporting that Barack Obama’s on-the-ground event staffers are en route from Denver to Indianapolis for a “major event” on Saturday.

Could it be the big announcement Hoosier Democrats are hoping to hear, or is it just one of many swing state campaign stops after the Springfield rally?

Also, is this a leak in the airtight Obama machine, or is this something that’s been leaked on purpose?

Is it even true?

  Many drivers and business owners on the East side are feeling hoodwinked by INDOT, and it’s hard to disagree with them.  This is the area that suffered most from the eight-month Super 70 project last year.  Now they’re about to undergo the Orange Barrel Nightmare again.  And many are asking, “Why?”

  Next Monday, or thereabouts, INDOT will close the eastbound on-ramp at Shadeland Avenue.  For two months, you won’t be able to get on eastbound I-70 or north or southbound I-465.  Work crews will rebuild the bridge that takes that ramp over Shadeland, because the steel rebars are coming through the pavement.  When was this discovered?  Last week?  Last month?  No, engineers discovered it last year during the Super Seventy project.

  So why wasn’t it fixed at the same time?  Because, according to INDOT, this bridge was not part of that project.  The Super Seventy contract only called for rebuilding the mainline I-70 bridges at that point.  Repairing the other bridge would have meant bidding out a separate contract.  Still, it seems it would have made sense to do all the work at once.  But INDOT says no, that traffic was already being squeezed and backed up, and adding more work would have made it worse.

  Drivers and business people we talked with in the area disagree.  They would have preferred to get all the pain over with at the same time.  And some are suspicious of INDOT’s motives for the delay.  One sharp driver recalled (with no prompting on our part) that the Super 70 contractor got a big bonus for finishing the project early.  Given INDOT’s history of cozy relationships with its contractors, he wonders if the state’s engineers conveniently forgot about the ramp bridge to avoid creating a delay that would have cost their buddies their bonus.

  Even taking INDOT at its word, you have to question why they waited so long to even inform people about the problem, then dropped this bomb on them just a few days before the work is to start.  Sure, drivers can find alternate routes without much notice.  But how about business people, who need to educate their customers on alternate routes so they don’t lose their business and who might need to reduce their purchases so they’re not stuck with merchandise they can’t sell to the reduced traffic?

  It all seems like the typical INDOT way of operation.  It’s all about the department’s convenience and its contractors and not the convenience of the people who pay the bills.  Remember last November, when most of the Super 70 work was done, but INDOT adamantly refused to pull up the barrels in those areas and let drivers return to the normal speed limit?  Department officials came up with all sorts of lame excuses about why they couldn’t do it.  But the real reason seemed to be that they just didn’t want to take the trouble to do it, because it would only benefit drivers.  And the same motive seems to be in operation here.

My phone makes a text message noise.

I check, but it’s just a friend inquiring about getting together soon.

I wait another 30 minutes and then wonder if maybe I forgot to turn the volume up on the alerts after the baby’s nap.

Still nothing.

Barack Obama, I am waiting for you. I want to know your pick for VP, and I want it to be EB. Evan Bayh, that is.

The suspense is killing me — and my work ethic. Even the baby has grown nervous as we sit here glued to CNN, surfing the Internet for silly tidbits of information from Washington.

I know this will all be over in the next few days, and then we can focus on the election in November, but for the time being, the wanting to know is driving me crazy.

Ooooh, gotta run. I think I just heard another text come in.

I’m hearing this morning that Stuart Lowry will be named this morning as the new head of Indy Parks. Lowry, I’m told, has expierience at White River Park as Director of Family Programs.  An official announcement is expected this afternoon.

My friends, last month Indiana lost 16,500 jobs.

If you didn’t hear me the first time, allow me to repeat: 16,500 jobs.

There are plenty of economists and political hacks who will tell you that one month’s numbers are a statistical anomaly and we shouldn’t be worried.

Unfortunately, this has been happening month after month since Mitch Daniels took office.

That might not be a huge problem if Daniels hadn’t made a big deal in 2004 promising to bring thousands of new jobs here.

Has he brought jobs? Yes. Half as many as former Gov. Joe Kernan did. Oh, and Daniels has had twice as much time.

The Gov’s people are now trying to say he’s brought thousands more jobs here, but we just have to wait a little longer for them to appear.

I guess that’s the ‘I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today’ method of governing.

Daniels’ latest internal polling shows him up by almost 20 points over unknown and under-funded Democratic challenger Jill Long Thompson. He’s on track to win a second term.

Let’s hope, if he does, that he starts paying attention to the promises he makes - and the people who get hurt when they don’t come true. Those jobs are people, not just numbers.