Contra the New York Times, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) is not a “true midwestern moderate.” They pegged him more accurately as “a former insurance executive who also served two terms as Nebraska’s governor.” Hearing news of his retirement, I had to say, “Be still my heart, Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman both retiring, and in the same year?” God, do I hate bad Democrats. And I so love to see them go.
I despise Ben Nelson. I despise his only obvious replacement, Bob Kerrey, too. Still, contra Atrios, I’d be relatively happy if Kerrey ran and retained this seat in the Dem column. He’s much better than Ben Nelson. And he’d be better than any conceivable Republican candidate.
You’ll have to excuse me, though, if I tell you that contemplating Nebraska’s politics just makes me want to puke. I wish a guy like Scott Kleeb could win there, but I have seen no evidence that he can. That leaves little incentive for progressives to get involved, one way or the other.
Of course, Obama did pull one electoral vote out of Nebraska in 2008, and he might do it again if the rules haven’t been changed. I thought I read something about that, but I could be wrong.
GOP threatened to change the rules, but they haven’t. Is he really much better than Ben Nelson? I don’t know, I’ve only read his opinions on entitlements, and then this:
I’m too young to remember him. I’m leaning towards the, “Bob Kerrey would bring the Democratic Party down and I’d rather him not run.”
To get Ben Nelson’s vote on ACA, didn’t we have to agree to weaken it? Would we have lost the bill to filibuster without his stupid vote?
Yes, we would have lost the reforms entirely without his stupid vote.
Perhaps the Toupee of Mass Destruction will join the Mustache of Understanding. They could dominate hair fetishists everywhere.
It’s moments like these that make me glad I’m not a hair fetishist.
Why do you think Scott Kleeb could not win? He couldn’t win against Ben Nelson or even against Bob Kerrey imo, but if Kerrey wins Nelson’s seat why not Scott Kleeb defeating Mike Johanns?
http://www.scottkleeb.com/about/vision/
I wan’t talking about Johanns. But that would be a long-shot for any Democrat, Kleeb included.
Two time losers become three time losers.
Unless their previous job was Vice-President of the United States
As a SD resident who lives about 80 m north of NE, I think that the political cultures of the two states are similar, but not identical. Oddly, SD is SOMETIMES more liberal (McGovern, Tim Johnson) than NE.
It’s a rural deal mostly. Omaha, the NYC of NE, is about 180,000 people. The rest are out there in the sticks punching cows and fucking sheep. It’s the same in SD, where Sioux Falls (my residence) has about 160,000. It’s a liberal oasis, with a Democratic mayor and one or 2 D state senators.
Are convinced a John Tester “type” could do it. Because Montana is just like Nebraska in geography, demographics and political culture. fifty state strategy -fap, fap, fap- progressive populist -fap, fap, fap- moving the Overton window -fap, fap, fap-.
My people are from Butte, MT, which is a very Democratic pocket because of a union tradition. There’s Missoula as well, with the University. Are there equivalents in NE, particularly to Butte?
Rural states that had a strong farmer-labor alliance or, like in the South, a strong farmers movement voted for Democrats, even liberal Democrats, when farm bills were in doubt and agribusiness wasn’t dominant. Now that most of them are out of business or secure, the conservative social wedge issues pushed by Republicans dominate their voting. And as incomes stopped rising, taxes became more dominant as an issue than the generosity of benefits for other people–but touch my farm program. And don’t raise the rents on my lease on ranchland on public land.
In the Dakotas, Wymoming, and Montana, one should not overlook the bigotry against Native Americans, who are seen as “welfare queens” by a lot of whites. Especially as most tribes are trying to reassemble the original boundaries of their reservations, which were lost through the scam of the Dawes Act.
I’m still not convinced Scott Kleeb couldn’t win against Johanns. The issues play out different in agricultural states (and not agribusiness, family agriculture, whether farming or ranching in NE). Kleeb is young, not burdened by the polarization of older generations politicking. I see the race issue in SD where the res is huge, but is that an issue in NE?
I happen to know Bob Kerrey, and I like him. I know Omaha, Nebraska too, and I have a lot of friends there. Things can always change, of course, but I don’t know anyone in Nebraska that thinks Bob Kerrey has any chance at all of being elected to anything in Nebraska again. They almost universally think NYC was a good place for him to go and genuinely wanted him to do well there, to make them proud. They wanted him to be mayor of NY, not Senator or Governor again.
It’s akin to dusting off Fritz Mondale in a state with a far stronger GOP lean.
I know that Senator Nelson wasn’t our favorite Senator, but he did vote with the Dems 71% of the time last year:
http://www.rollcall.com/news/Senate-Democrats-Losing-Least-Supportive-Member-211275-1.html
what’s the chance that a Republican from NE would do the same?
And if one’s spouse was faithful 71% of the time?
better than a spouse be faithful 0%, but that’s a ridiculous analogy.
The point was that percentages aren’t what’s important. When you have someone actively working against the party then you can’t expect the party faithful to be sad at his retirement.
I think my response to billperkins below answers what I mean here
And just look at the important bills Nelson worked against. The dude wasn’t even a sure thing to break the GOP filibuster a bunch of the time.
see my response to billperkins below
You suggest the larger point that like it or not we have a system that requires coalition building in order to get things done. Coalition building can suck if you are a purist, but Ben Nelson was, it kills me to say it, a crucial part of the coalition. He was vastly superior to a NE Republican. I’m a little nauseous saying it but it’s true.
right I’m not trying to defend his policies, but we need Democrats and losing one from NE hurts our cause one way or the other.
Sometimes it’s the size of the caucus that’s important, not just how they individually vote.