Hey, all you people who planned on voting for McCain/Palin. Give up, now! You have no chance of winning because Barack Obama is going to swamp your ticket so badly that even solidly Republican Nebraska has now become a battleground state. Or at least the split electoral district centered around Omaha. That is the not so hidden message of this Washington Post article written by Peter Slevin:

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.

And if a meteorite hits the Eiffel tower that will affect tourism in France. Nevertheless, Slevin plows through his highly unlikely Nebraska scenario whose only purpose is to demoralize Republicans everywhere in the hope they just don't even bother to vote:

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. 

Or even if McCain loses that Nebraska electoral vote, Obama might still have a shot at winning 3 electoral votes in Wyoming. Ridiculous but no more so than the premise of the article. Most of the rest of this story is really nothing more than Slevin going through the motions of why Obama has a shot at winning an unattainable Nebraska electoral vote. 

This article concludes with a typical MSM technique. First it makes Obama supporters seem thoughtful:

McCain is expected to win those precincts easily, but the young volunteers found a handful of possible supporters.

"I think he's more of the last eight years," said Tim Stastny, 31, a vending machine stocker, explaining why he plans to vote for Obama.

Then an "undecided" voter who sounds exactly like she was planning to vote for Obama in the first place:

Postal worker Cheryl Foss, 48, was undecided. She has doubts about Obama's experience but prefers his middle-class tax cuts to McCain's focus on tax relief for wealthier Americans. McCain's choice of Palin particularly troubles Foss. She said of McCain, a 72-year-old melanoma survivor, "I'm afraid he might not be around and then it would be up to Palin." 

Along with another "undecided" who thinks Obama would be better but has been deluded by evil Republican propaganda:

Electrician Jeremy Miller, 30, thinks Obama would be a better president for the working class but believes the false reports that Obama -- a Christian born in Hawaii -- is actually a Muslim and a foreigner.

"Him not being an actual American, that's got me worried," Miller said. "This might be one of those years when I don't vote."

Finally, hard as it is to believe, someone is found in Nebraska who definitely won't be supporting Obama or his "enlightened" policies but only because she is unreasonably stubborn and narrow-minded, in common with all who oppose Obama in the opinion of the Washington Post and the MSM:

Cromwell, an 18-year-old volunteer, asked a woman whether she would support Obama.

"I doubt it," she answered.

Wolf, 22, an Obama staffer, asked whether she would like some campaign literature.

"No."

Meanwhile you Bush voters might as well stay home. You have no hope since the top secret exit polls that leaked late in the afternoon show John Kerry to be the landslide winner. Give up...NOW!!!

Oops! I just had a flashback to Election Day 2004. The time and the candidates have changed but the tactics have remained the same. Demoralize voters planning to vote for the Republican ticket in the hopes that they just sit on their hands rather than vote.

—P.J. Gladnick is a freelance writer and creator of the DUmmie FUnnies blog.