I've seen dreams on dKos of Obama's taking Indiana "just like he did in '08." Well, it's not going to happen. You have to look at what happened in '08.
That year, before Citizen's United and the Super Pacs, the Obama campaign, proper, had much more money (as well as other resources, like volunteers) than the McCain campaign had. The RNC had vastly more than the DNC, but the joint accounts still favored the Blue team.
After the polls closed in Indiana but before the results were in, a local Chicago station asked somebody in national Obama HQ what their chances were in Indiana.
"Taking Indiana was never part of our battle plan," he responded. "We just wanted the McCain campaign to have to spend resources there." (I'm paraphrasing the reporter, who may well have been paraphrasing the campaign executive.)
Well, the plan failed in one way. McCain's campaign didn't spend resources there, although the RNC did. In another way, though, the plan worked. They had to spend resources there or lose the state; they lost the state, although by a hair's-breadth.
The resources that the Obama campaign committed to IN were limited. My group lived on the North side of Chicago; we could get to the IN state line by public transit. The campaign kept sending us across the state to Iowa. We asked about Indiana, but were told that Illinois volunteers were broken down by CD, and our CD was going to Iowa. If Chicago CDs were going to Iowa, the campaign wasn't sending much to Indiana.
And both campaigns were being rational. Sane people plan for a tight race. IN was only possible for Obama in a blowout. The campaign used money there, and local volunteers. The McCain people decided that they needed their money elsewhere; if IN was in doubt, the nation was going down the tubes. And the nation went down the tubes for McCain, which put IN just in doubt.
Well, this year the Obama campaign doesn't have more money than Scrooge McDuck, or -- at least -- they don't have as much money as the Romney campaign. The game for Indiana no longer makes sense, and they are not playing it. You have to remember, we on dkos can dance a Snoopy dance and say "it is in the bag." Axelrod is sweating over all the things that could go wrong. And plenty still could.
(One thing that can't go wrong is the campaign's being taken down by a collapse of the Eurorzone economy. That could happen, although it is unlikely to happen all that quickly. If it happens it will drag down the US economy. But,
1) It won't affect workers within 6 weeks.
2) The cause will be so obvious that blaming the President will be hard to believe.
If Europe sags over the next year, the US will follow suit, and then the Republicans will have more luck putting blame on the President. OTOH, Europe is in more danger of one large economy going belly-up than of a general sag.)