OMAHA, Neb. – President-elect Barack Obama won one of Nebraska's electoral votes, the first time in history that the state has split its votes and the first time in 44 years that it had given a vote to a Democrat.

After remaining ballots were counted Friday, Obama had a 3,325-vote lead over Republican John McCain in unofficial results for the 2nd Congressional District. Nebraska and Maine are the two states that divide their electoral votes by congressional districts.

 

AFP/Getty Images/File – President-elect Senator Barack Obama (L) shakes hands with Republican rival Senator John McCain at the …

Obama, who won the White House last week, has 365 electoral votes to McCain's 162. Missouri, with 11 electoral votes, is still too close to call. Election officials in that state have until Tuesday to finish counting.

The last Democrat to win Nebraska was Lyndon B. Johnson, who carried the state in 1964.

A 1991 state law allows Nebraska to divide its five electoral votes. Two go to the statewide winner and one is awarded from each of the state's three congressional districts.

McCain comfortably won the electoral votes tied to the 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts. He also won the statewide race with about 57 percent of the vote in preliminary returns.

Obama aggressively sought the one electoral vote. He opened three campaign offices in the district and had 16 paid staff during the campaign.

As of Friday's unofficial results for the district, Obama has a total of 138,892 votes and McCain 135,567 votes. The Obama lead of 3,325 is far higher than the recount threshold of about 1,389, or 1 percent of Obama's total.

Scott Wente The Republican Eagle
Published Friday, November 14, 2008

ST. PAUL — Transportation experts say states reviewed bridge policies after the Interstate 35W bridge collapse, but wonder if the issue will be a national priority long after this week’s findings from a collapse investigation.

Minnesota officials, a bridge expert studying the collapse and transportation-minded lawmakers said the state has improved its bridge inspections and understanding of bridge design and safety following the Aug. 1, 2007, Minneapolis collapse.

“Overall, our bridge department’s going to come out of this in a much stronger position,” said Steve Murphy, a Red Wing Democrat and chairman of the state Senate Transportation Committee that has monitored post-collapse bridge developments. “My only worry is that other departments across the United States are not making the same effort to update their bridge programs and the way they go about acquiring evidence through their inspection process.”

The NTSB today concludes a two-day hearing of its year-long Interstate 35W bridge investigation.

The bridge collapse started at an area of inferior steel elements known as gusset plates, federal transportation investigators said Thursday, faulting the original design of a critical element of the bridge that fell into the Mississippi River.

“This terrible tragedy began some 40 years ago with an inadequate design of a gusset plate or, in this case, a number of gusset plates,” NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker said of the collapse that resulted in 13 deaths and injuries to more than 140.

Investigators’ focused their report Thursday on gusset plates half as thick as they should have been and the effect of extra weight from construction materials and equipment on the bridge deck the day of the collapse. They said their investigation ruled out several other theories behind the collapse, including corroded bridge components.

Even before the NTSB released its findings, local transportation officials said the collapse and subsequent investigation changed bridge safety in Minnesota.

State Bridge Engineer Dan Dorgan, who was in Washington for the NTSB report, told state lawmakers Wednesday Minnesota led states earlier this year in reviewing gusset plates on similarly designed bridges. NTSB officials sought the review in January after announcing gusset plates were a focus of their investigation.

Dorgan, Minnesota Department of Transportation’s top bridge official, said state officials also have shared lessons they learned from the collapse with their counterparts across the country.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican who blamed some Democrats for jumping to conclusions about the cause of the bridge collapse, said the NTSB results “underscore why it was important to withhold judgment until the investigation was complete.”

The collapse led to renewed attention to sophisticated engineering techniques used in recent bridge construction, a University of Minnesota professor said.

The collapse prompted state transportation agencies to take a closer look at similarly designed bridges in their states, and there may be a greater use of equipment built into a bridge that constantly assesses the structure’s condition, said Roberto Ballarini, who leads the university’s Civil Engineering Department.

Ballarini said civil engineering theories develop slowly, so not much has changed in the 15 months since the collapse. However, he said, it likely will prompt more research into bridge design.

“As time progresses, there probably will be a lot more modeling of the structures on the computer to predict their behavior,” said Ballarini, who with university faculty and students is completing a separate investigation into the bridge collapse. He described it as a small-scale version of the NTSB investigation.

The NTSB findings come months before Congress starts writing new legislation that will guide federal highway and bridge funding.

U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, who leads the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, refused to discuss Thursday either the NTSB report or the impact of the collapse on bridge safety before the federal panel concluded its two-day hearing. Oberstar’s spokesman said the congressman would comment today at the conclusion of the two-day hearing, when the NTSB releases its summary report.

Oberstar’s opinion on the bridge collapse and investigation is significant given that he is expected to lead the committee next year that will draft new transportation policy. Further, he has criticized the NTSB for a leak to the media about its investigation and has been skeptical of its focus.

While a lack of maintenance may not be a cause of the bridge collapse, states still need to place a greater emphasis on maintaining their bridges, said Murphy, the lawmaker.

Minnesota is doing a better job of that than many other states, he added.

“I’ve got every confidence that they’re going to move forward and continue to make the appropriate changes so that the public is safe,” Murphy said of state bridge officials.

(Adds analyst comment, paragraphs 14-15)

By Steve Holland

CHICAGO, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Sen. Hillary Clinton emerged on Thursday as a candidate to be U.S. secretary of state for Barack Obama, months after he defeated her in an intense contest for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Putting Clinton, wife of former President Bill Clinton, in the position could help heal whatever lingering divisions remain in the Democratic Party after her bitter battle with Obama.

Obama passed over Clinton as his vice presidential running mate in favor of Sen. Joe Biden, a decision that angered her ardent supporters and widened a rift in the party that Obama and Clinton later worked hard to heal.

Her selection as top U.S. diplomat could also mean a more hawkish foreign policy than that advocated by Obama during his presidential campaign. On the campaign trail, Clinton was more reluctant than Obama to commit to a firm timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

But both Obama and Clinton were adamant about improving the image of the United States abroad and correcting what they considered the "failed policies" of the outgoing Bush administration.

Clinton was described by her office as having flown to Chicago on Thursday on personal business.

Neither her aides nor aides to President-elect Obama would say whether she was interviewed for the job by Obama, who spent a great part of the day behind closed doors in transition meetings at his Chicago office.

"Any speculation about cabinet or other administration appointments is really for President-elect Obama's transition team to address," said Clinton's senior adviser, Philippe Reines.

NBC News and The Washington Post reported that Clinton was under consideration for the top U.S. diplomatic position.

EXPANDED SEARCH?

This would mean Obama was expanding his search beyond other candidates mentioned for the job, such as Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, a Democrat who lost the 2004 presidential election to George W. Bush, and Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican who backed Obama over Republican John McCain this year.

CNN reported that on Monday night, while walking into an awards ceremony in New York, Clinton was asked if she would consider taking a post in the Obama administration. It did not sound like she ruled it out.

"I am happy being a senator from New York, I love this state and this city. I am looking at the long list of things I have to catch up on and do. But I want to be a good partner and I want to do everything I can to make sure his agenda is going to be successful," Clinton said.

Analyst Paul Light of New York University's John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress said picking Clinton would mean Obama was serious about reaching across the party divide.

On the other hand, he said: "To put her in the competition with several others and pick somebody other than Hillary Clinton after you've floated her name is to have a repeat of the spring and summer division and raise questions about Obama's seriousness about healing the division within the party."

Clinton was at first considered the shoo-in to win the Democratic nomination only to watch the 47-year-old Illinois senator defeat her in a series of decisive battles.

Whether Clinton would want the position was immediately debated on cable television talk shows. After all, she wanted to be president, and why would she settle for anything less?

"I think she has her sights set higher than that," said Stephen Hayes, a columnist for the Weekly Standard Magazine, on CNN.

On the other hand, Obama won election over McCain decisively and if he is successful in his first term, he very well could win again in 2012, probably putting the presidency out of reach for Clinton, who is now 61.

As U.S. first lady Clinton devoted a great deal of time to the rights of women around the world, often traveling the globe with her daughter, Chelsea.

As a presidential candidate, she argued for putting greater U.S. emphasis on defeating the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and in ensuring nuclear weapons do not spread.

(Additional reporting by Vicki Allen, Jackie Frank and JoAnne Allen, editing by Jackie Frank)