Numbers confirm state's status

[NVMojo]

Anyone who lived in Nevada in the fall of 2004 didn't need any political pundits to tell them how popular the state was to President Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry.

Bush visited the state four times and Kerry stopped by seven times. But it took some figure shuffling by an organization called FairVote to determine just how popular Nevada was during the campaign. FairVote released a report last week that ranked Nevada No. 7 in the nation in terms of campaign attention.

The organization determined Nevada has less than 1 percent of the total U.S. population, yet received 3.62 percent of the TV advertising revenue and 2.41 percent of peak campaign visits.

more...

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Nov-14-Mon-2005/news/4256786.html

[seafey]

1. There's clearly something wrong...

with a voting system like this that one state matters more than the next. We need instant runoff voting!!!!!!!!

[Awsi Dooger]

2. This paragraph made me sick

"The journeys to Nevada didn't help Kerry. He lost Nevada to Bush by 21,500 votes. Four years earlier, in a campaign in which Nevada received far less attention, Al Gore lost to Bush by 21,597 votes."

Kerry did 3 points worse than Gore nationwide yet slightly better in Nevada. That is a condemnation of the Gore campaign and strategy. Nevada was much more winnable in 2000 than 2004. The Yucca Mountain issue was there to be pounced on and 9/11 hadn't happened so there was no terrorism fear in southern Nevada regarding the big hotels as potential targets.

I'm still in disbelief Gore didn't prioritze Nevada, obviously assuming the tiny number of electoral votes were unlikely to make a difference.