Report: Campaign stops heaped on few states

By Maureen Groppe
Published October 10th 2008 in Journal and Courier
WASHINGTON - A new listing of presidential campaign visits to states shows how unusual it is that Indiana is getting attention this year.
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The top 10 states receiving the most attention from the major party nominees for president and vice president are similar to the top states wooed in 2004, according to FairVote, a Maryland-based organization that tries to draw attention to what it calls the nation's shrinking presidential battleground.

Indiana, which has not been seriously contested in years, did not make the list of 10 most visited states in either election.

But it had at least one candidate visit from Sept. 5 - the first day after the parties' national conventions ended - through Oct. 6. (The group's tally ended before Barack Obama's Indianapolis visit Wednesday and only includes a visit by his running mate, Joe Biden, in September.)

Twenty-nine states have not received even a token visit by a candidate, according to the group.

The states with the most candidate visits through Oct. 6 are: Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Virginia, Missouri, Florida, Wisconsin, New York and New Mexico. Of those states, only New York, Virginia and Missouri were not among the most visited states in 2004.

FairVote argues that voters in states that are ignored by the campaigns are "effectively disenfranchised" as the campaigns don't pay attention to their particular issues.

Their tracking of campaign visits can be viewed at: http://fairvote.org/president/?page=2450.
IRV Soars in Twin Cities, FairVote Corrects the Pundits on Meaning of Election Night '09
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers.  Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections;  the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.

And as pundits try to make hay out of the national implications of Tuesday’s gubernatorial elections, Rob Richie in the Huffington Post concludes that the gubernatorial elections have little bearing on federal elections.

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