In Omaha, Obama campaign works to ‘defend the dot’
This post has been updated.
OMAHA, Neb. Late last Thursday, hours after Mitt Romney had wrapped up a large rally and one of the most successful fundraisers in Nebraska history, Gary Wilwerding was camped out with about a dozen others inside a small office in a strip mall here that was buzzing with activity.
(Mandel Ngan - AFP/Getty Images)
As he has done for six to eight hours most weeks, Wilwerding, a 64-year-old retiree, was working to train other volunteers and help piece together data gathered from neighborhood canvassing and phonebanking.
His objective: To defend the dot.
The dot would be the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District, an area that then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) narrowly won four years ago despite losing Nebraskas statewide vote to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) by a 15-percentage-point margin.
That win wasnt for naught: Nebraska, along with Maine, is one of only two states in the country that award a portion of their electoral college votes by congressional district, meaning that Obama came away from deep-red Nebraska with one of the states five electoral college votes.
Six months out from November 2012, the Obama camp believes that in a close race, Omahas single vote could make all the difference. And volunteers like Wilwerding a self-described independent who has supported Republicans in the past are working to keep their hold on what has come to be known as Obamaha.
I think nationally, if this one little area has that one electoral vote again, it says something about the people of Nebraska ... that there are people in the Midwest here that are very committed to the ideals of the Democratic Party, Wilwerding said late last week in an interview at the Obama campaigns Omaha headquarters. I would hate people to think that thats not the way it is. Nebraskas got an opportunity, and last time, they came through with shining colors.
The 2008 election marked the first time in history that the Cornhusker State had split its electoral votes since a 1991 law made it one of only two states in the country able to do so.