Why all the interest in Nebraska

Washington Post:

With a month to go before Election Day, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, touched down here Sunday for an unexpected rally in a state that President Bush won by 22 percentage points in 2004.

In early September, even as it was shifting resources out of other traditionally Republican states to key electoral battlegrounds, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign sent 15 paid staffers to Nebraska, a state that has backed a Democrat for president just once since 1936.

Despite Nebraska's consistent preference for a Republican in the Oval Office, Obama and the national mood are forcing Sen. John McCain to focus more on the state's biggest city and most urban congressional district.

Both camps have their eyes on the same reward: a single electoral vote that could prove pivotal in determining the next president.

Nebraska is one of only two states that award electoral votes by congressional district, rather than on a winner-take-all basis. Obama strategists see an opportunity in the 2nd District, where disaffection with Washington and strong Democratic voter-registration efforts are narrowing the Republican advantage.

If Obama pulls an upset in this district, regardless of what happens in the rest of Nebraska, he will pick up one electoral vote toward the 270 needed to win.

Among the scenarios that strategists have spun out, both sides see the possibility of an unprecedented tie in the electoral college. If Obama won Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico, for instance, and the rest of the map remained the same as in 2004, the race would be knotted at 269 to 269. The same would be true if Obama won Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado while McCain picked up New Hampshire.

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I think the chances of the contest being decided by one vote are remote, but the Nebraska situation does show what would happen if proportional distribution of electoral votes were more common. It would make for a very expensive Presidential race. Nebraska has inundated with Obama ads for weeks. While it is a relatively inexpensive media market you can imagine what it would cost in more expensive markets like New York and New Jersey.

The NY Times coverage of the Nebraska stop had some interesting tidbits.

Gov. Sarah Palin called Barack Obama “someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a terrorist,” in reference to a recent article in The New York Times that detailed the relationship between the Democratic candidate William C. Ayers, a professor in Chicago who is a former member of the Weather Underground.

Ms. Palin did not use the phrase “palling around with terrorists,” as she did Saturday in Colorado when she first mentioned the article.

At once deriding the newspaper and the “mainstream media” to great boos, Governor Palin used the article to suggest as she did Saturday that Mr. Obama was out of step with America. Ms. Palin, who was met with a crowd of roughly 3,000 screaming, applauding, ebullient supporters, also said that her interviews with Katie Couric – whom she referred to not by name but rather as a member of the mainstream media, stemmed from her irritation with the questions.

“I was thinking, ‘Man, Americans wanna know about how I think we’re gonna win the war,’” and solve the country’s economic problems, she said, not learn about what she reads.

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Every rally has its own T-shirt and signage. Here there were signs that read, “From Alaska to Nebraska” and “Piper 2036.” One T-shirt: “Obama, keep the change.”

I have noticed that Piper is the one of her kids who is most comfortable on the stump. I could see it in some of the pictures when she was with her mother while running for mayor as well as her ease at being on stage and waiving to the crowd. She seems to like it.

Palin is showing herself to be pretty astute in the sue of words. She changed to working with because it is a phrase that is inarguable. Some in the media seem to give Obama a pass by suggesting that Obama and Ayers were hardly pals even though Obama did start his political career in Obama's living room. This new formulation of the relationship makes it harder to slip away from the facts.

BTW, the Washington Times crowd estimate in Omaha is twice that of the NY Times. The local paper talked about the enthusiastic reception for Palin on a very short notice. Their estimate of the crowd was closer to the Washington Times story and local Republicans indicated that if they ahd more than 27 hours notice the crowd would have been even larger.