This Ain't Chicago!

So it's OK to vote early, but not often.

Yes, tomorrow is--at long last--Nebraska's primary election day for 2008. In typical Nebraska fashion, we have choices among an odd list of candidates. In the Democratic Party primary for the US Senate seat that Chuck Hagel is vacating, we can choose between Tony Raimondo and Scott Kleeb (pronounced "Klebb"). Raimondo is a Republican-turned-Democrat, most probably to take a clearer path to a nomination. He's also a businessman who dies his hair [which wouldn't matter but it's cheap and badly done, and it looks worse than a bad comb-over, all suggesting that Raimondo has some serious self-delusion problems--Ed.] and who keeps saying we need to elect him "to change Washington." He subtly insults his Democratic Party opponent by calling him "an academic," and the Republican candidate (running unopposed) as a "lifelong politician."

Kleeb is young, and is an academic in that he teaches history courses at one of the state colleges. But the tone of his campaign has been more positive in that he's stressing "it's not a matter of right or left" and "it's what my grandfather taught me--a politics of service, not of self." In a western Nebraska populist way, it's an appeal for the partisans to take off their boxing gloves and work together for everyone's benefit. For my money, it's a much more mature campaign approach than Raimondo's. Then again, Kleeb has a lead foot and has run up a ton of speeding tickets covering western Nebraska's expansive spaces. This will not endear him to the majority of generally law-abiding Nebraskans.

One would almost be sure that the Republican candidate, Mike Johanns, former mayor of Lincoln, former Nebraska governor, former US Secretary of Agriculture, will win automatically come November. After all, Johanns is popular, and his association with Dubya's administration hasn't seemed to hurt him. But Johanns is a Democrat-turned-Republican. There are plenty of people in the western part of this state who will hold that against him even though he switched parties years ago, mostly so that he'd have a clear path to the governorship back when he ran for and won that office. He won it, by the way, by winning the two major population centers of the state: Omaha, because business interests perceived him to be a good choice, and Lincoln, because the university and government-oriented population there knew him and liked him. He got the votes he got in the western part of the state because a lot of people there voted by party affiliation only.

I can hear the program hawkers now: "You can't tell the players without a scorecard! Get your programs here!" Not that party-switching is new around here. Those of you who remember the late Nebraska US Senator Ed Zorinsky and our own current senior US Senator, Ben Nelson, just to name two, know that.

But back to tomorrow: Johanns' ad is more like Kleeb's in tone than Raimondo's, but it's Muzak rendition of Tom Petty's Won't Back Down oddly jarring. Still, it seems like Kleeb and Johanns are on the same page, at least. It would be fun to see their campaigns against each other come fall. Raimondo has made it clear that he'll just attack Johanns as being a Washington insider. Well, I have news for Raimondo: no one is going to "change Washington" all by himself, especially as a first-term junior senator from a relatively low-in-population state. So Raimondo is already falling into a typically Republican pattern of making promises he cannot or will not keep. That won't wash with many of the voters I know, be they Democrats, Republicans, Greens, or independents.

I do love the politics in this state! At some level, there's always unpredictability. Despite Nebraska's well-deserved reputation as one of the reddest of the so-called Red states, the way Nebraskans will vote in any given election can shock you. I wouldn't put it past Kleeb to beat Raimondo in the Democratic primary, for these main reasons: (1) Nebraskans do not like negative campaigning. Despite the relatively mild way Raimondo does it, his tone is more negative than is Kleeb's. (2) Not many of the Democrats in this state are fooled by Raimondo, even though--or maybe even because--he has the Omaha World-Herald's endorsement. Raimondo is the classic DINO ("Democrat In Name Only"). Nebraska runs closed primaries. Only registered Democrats can vote in the Nebraska Democratic Party primary. There may not be many Democrats in Nebraska overall, but we tend to vote in our primaries against those running for Democratic nominations who get the World-Herald's endorsement, just to be ornery.

Besides, Raimondo's call is "to change Washington." If he dislikes it so much, why does he want to become part of it? I, for one, do not trust people who say the system is crummy and the system needs fixing, but who still want to run the system. They tend to be out for their own gain more than anything else. I don't think there's that much seriously wrong with the system--only with the poor choices we've made of people to occupy positions in it. I'm not alone in my belief that someone like Kleeb, who makes it plain that he wants to work together with others to get the system to work better, sends a much more positive message than does someone like Raimondo, who despite his stated desire to change things, is running the same old negative campaign.

So go forth and vote tomorrow, Nebraskans. Just remember: only once! Till November, that is.