Lack of Clinton Sighting Riles Nebraskans

Bill Clinton is a serious traveling man, and during more than 6 1/2 years as president, he has visited some 57 countries and every state in the union . . . except one. And Nebraskans are getting a bit worked up.

Clinton has planted the presidential wingtip in the soil of neighboring Missouri 14 times, Colorado 11 times, Iowa eight. He’s kissed babies next door in Wyoming, which has one-third the registered voters, on three occasions. Last month, the president headed to South Dakota for the fifth time, visiting the Pine Ridge Reservation, which is, if the wind is right, spitting distance from Nebraska.

Still, none of the excitement of route-planning White House “advance” teams on this side of the state line. No black Secret Service Suburbans with spooky antennae. No president.

“Oftentimes a president will visit a state because of a natural disaster. So, in a way, this is a good thing,” insisted state Democratic Party Chairwoman Anne Boyle. Still, she added a bit mournfully, “we’d sure like a visit.”

While many in this state of 1.7 million are beginning to feel downright neglected, some are delighted over their own personal presidential snub.

Nebraska by and large is corn-husking conservative, Ten Commandments strict, and entirely unsentimental about politicians who are neither. Double that for the town of Clinton, a tiny burg in the state’s northwest corner that has 33 people, two churches, zero stores and one blind dog.

“He could stand right across the darned street and I wouldn’t cross it to see him,” said 77-year-old Thelma Witt, emphasizing the word “darned” because the last time she spoke publicly about the president her use of racier language became quite the gossip.

No one in this state was too concerned with the landing log of Air Force One until last month. After all, it’s no secret that presidents travel primarily for political reasons: to California and other big states for their sea of votes or to New York if their wives are exploring a run for the Senate there.

Rural states get less attention. They’re used to it.

But in July, Clinton made the first trip of his administration to Mississippi, reaching the 49 mark. And suddenly Nebraska was alone, the only state left standing against the wall at the dance of the presidential visit.

She was hurt. And she was mad.

“President Clinton will make his eighth trip to Iowa on Friday--precisely eight more times than he has come to Nebraska during his presidency,” wailed the Omaha World-Herald in a front-page article after Clinton left Mississippi. “Clinton has been a traveling president, making frequent trips to Iowa and 48 other states since taking the oath of office in January 1993. Then there is Nebraska--and only Nebraska--where the numero uno passenger on Air Force One has yet to set foot.”

A columnist for the paper said she’d “rather have my high school friend Cathy, who lives in Georgia, visit more. . . . What I don’t like is being the only state he hasn’t visited.”

So, Democrats are trying to dream up an event so irresistible even a busy president can’t say no--a heartland millennium parade, maybe, or a really big farm rally.

Young Nebraska scholars on visits to the White House are inquiring about the president’s upcoming travel schedule.

The truth, though, is Nebraska and Clinton have never been close.

Sitting outside their house on Clinton Street here, Lois Retzlaff, who voted for Clinton, tried unsuccessfully to get husband, Bob, from telling his favorite Clinton jokes and said: “I really don’t think this is Clinton country.”

Statewide polls measuring his job approval are often 20 points below the national average. His percentage of the Nebraska vote in the 1992 and 1996 elections was among the lowest in the country, along with Idaho, Alaska and Utah.

Sen. Bob Kerrey is the only Democrat to hold a statewide elected office here--and Kerrey, who lost the 1992 nomination to Clinton, has never been best pals with the president.

So, while a good many Nebraskans are feeling insecure about their 50th-out-of-50 place on the president’s must-see list, foes of Clinton are gleefully working it to their political advantage.

“I hereby declare this to be a Clinton-free zone!” state Republican Party Chair Chuck Sigerson proclaimed recently at the opening of a Republican National Committee gathering. “You are drinking Clinton-free water, breathing Clinton-free air and walking on Clinton-free ground.”

“I think it would be a fine footnote for history,” Sigerson said later, chuckling, “if he would finish his term having avoided us like the plague.”

Not likely. Clinton, who is as good as any of his predecessors with an arm-squeeze and better with an airplane, knows all about the hurt feelings here, and about the easy shots his conspicuous absence has provided his opponents. And he’s quite eager to visit, said White House spokesman Jake Siewert.

During the recent trip to Pine Ridge, “we were very near Nebraska, and he said, ‘Let’s just go.’ ” Siewert recalled. “It is more an accident than anything else that Nebraska will be the last place he visits as president. But we’ll do more than just hop across the state line.”