The Missing State

Forty-eight down, two to go:

When President Barack Obama speaks at Hill Air Force Base in Utah on Friday, he’ll have traveled to 49 states as president, nearly reaching his goal of stopping in every single one during his eight years in office.

After this week, South Dakota will remain the only state unvisited by the commander in chief, though Obama’s aides say he’s gunning to reach all 50 by the end of his term. {…}

South Dakota, though not on Obama’s presidential itinerary, did play an important role getting him to the White House. It was after the state’s primary in 2008 that Obama officially clinched the Democratic nomination; while Hillary Clinton won South Dakota, the number of delegates Obama took from his second-place finish put him over the nomination threshold.{…}

His most recent predecessors have all strived to hit the 50-state mark. George H.W. Bush reached all the states in his term. Clinton took longer but eventually reached every one.

George W. Bush left office one state short of 50; he never traveled to Vermont, the liberal bastion of upper New England where state legislators, outraged at the Iraq War, voted to impeach him and Vice President Dick Cheney.

It turns out Obama faces a similar audience in the final state on his checklist. The South Dakota Republican Party adopted a resolution last summer calling for Obama’s ouster.

Well, at least it’s the party and not the state senate! And South Dakota does have that important role in his history. Plus two of his most important early supporters (Daschle and a big-time donor) hail from the state!

I’m actually a little surprised at the two remaining. I definitely wouldn’t have guessed Utah would be 49, and wouldn’t have even pegged SD as the one that may get left off. I would have guessed Idaho and Montana. The major population centers North and South Dakota are on the east coast, and sufficiently close to Iowa, that I might have thought he’d have stopped by then. I would have guessed Idaho and maybe Montana as the two missing states, or maybe Alaska. He visited Idaho just a couple months ago.

It turns out there is a long history of presidents going to the Gem State, including every president from LBJ onward. The most salacious one is rumored to be Grover Cleveland:

Numerous reports from North Idaho say Grover Cleveland, a Democrat who served as president in 1885-1889 and 1893-1897, visited Idaho frequently to visit a mistress. The woman, identified as Frieda Bethmann, lived in a home purportedly purchased by Cleveland near Kamiah.

They had an illegitimate son, according to rumors published in the Lewiston Tribune in a 1990 story by Diane Pettit. Other reports had him taking the railroad to Pomeroy, Wash., where he was one of two presidents to sign the register of the St. George Hotel, now known as the Revere.

Bill Clinton apparently went to Idaho several times. Not for the same reason. As far as we know.