I also prefer a governor as job experience. It provides so much more breadth and depth than, say, a community organizer.
As for Clinton, that was an unusual circumstance. He was only the second democrat elected president between 1968 and 2008, a period of forty years. What he had in common with the other democrat was being a governor of a southern state that was seen as “moderate” or even slightly conservative. Northern liberal democrats had no chance, but supposedly conservative southern democrat governors did.
Indiana does not bring that dynamic to the table. We’re just another midwestern state that has only one key difference with the others: We’re smaller. And don’t carry the votes.
What you describe as a negative (Indiana is a ‘small state’), might just be the very thing that people find attractive about Mike Pence (or Scott Walker).