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Not to change the focus of this article, but I think I know the reason for Obama referring to 56. Obama went to school in Hawaii. Hawaiians were probably still smarting from the fact it to so many years after Pearl Harbor before they became a state. Thus they would have emphasized the territories and dependencies, a number of which were also in the Pacific. THey are: Guam, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Washington, DC. Actually I think he said 57, and when I asked another Freeper “why do I only find 56, he said because when Obama was in school we probably had the Panama Canal Zone.”

While all of them except PR and DC have rather small populations, I see no reason why PR and DC should not be. PR, of course, has voted rather ambivalently over time. On the other hand in a recent referendum, DC citizens voted over 70% in favor of statehood. DC has a population larger than Vermont and Wyoming. It also returns 3 or 4 times the amount of IRS tax money than it gets back in grants and other payments. For DC citizens not to be able to vote on how their money is spent is grossly unfair, especially as they are giving so much more than they get back. I know of no major world capitol where their citizens do not have such voting rights. And, NO, DC citizens want statehood, not just voting rights.