Here in the campaign's final month (!!!) I'm going to try and pluck out interesting local stories from the battleground states. Here's one from the Las Vegas Review Journal, on a big surge in Nevada Democratic voter registration which, for reasons unclear, has not been reflected in recent state polling. Money bit:
Democrats have been beating Republicans in the registration game almost every month since the election in November 2006. At that time, Republicans had 6,998 more registered voters in the Silver State than Democrats. [Democrats now have an 80,666 advantage.]
In September, Democrats added even more voters in Carson City, where Palin visited Sept. 13 in her first appearance without McCain and drew 5,000 enthusiastic supporters.
At that appearance, Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, who chairs the McCain-Palin campaign in Nevada, said the Alaska governor was generating so much excitement, it would lead to additional registration and a victory for their ticket in November.
But that hasn't happened: Nevada Democrats increased their registration advantage over Republicans by 18,961 voters in the month after Palin's selection.
This is probably a case where it probably didn't hurt Obama to have a tough primary fight with Hillary Clinton; he just left his huge state organization in place.
P.S. See the Times on the Obama team's voter-registration efforts in rural Nevada.
--Michael Crowley