I love Nebraskan politics. I can say that without the least bit of sarcasm. It's illegal to run as a member of a political party for most state and city positions. The voters, while they have strong Republican leanings (and I have more leftish leanings), are at least sincere in those views rather than voting along party lines. Our Democratic senator was praised by Bush for being one of the champions of bipartisanship. It's a definite perk to life in the Sea of Red.
Even our attack ads are fairly good natured. The former CEO of AmeriTrade decided to run against our Democrat in the Senate. He brilliantly opened up his campaign with a series of attacks on the incumbent. He was asked privately to knock it off. He persisted. He was asked publically to stop, and he replied, "No, you have name recognition. I'm not going to let you use that against me." The incumbent replied, in a very PC fasion, "Do you believe in this strongly enough that you would encourage me to use the same tactics?" I forget the exact response, but he agreed. Big mistake.
In about a week, the state was well-informed on his voting record against raising the minimum wage, firing 1,000 Omahans at the same time he gave himself bonuses (about $3mil) and a raise (from $3000 to $5000 an hour), and threatening a state employee to have his property evaluation ridiculously overturned to keep his taxes down. (I forget the exact figures...basically, bought a house for $1.4mil, assessor appraises it at $1.3mil, he goes down to the courthouse and very uncouthly demands it gets dropped to $850k. Next round of appraisals, it's appraised at $1.5mil, and he again demands it go down to $850k.)
Needless to say, every Republican up for re-election in the next two years has no comment about the challenger.
Even our attack ads are fairly good natured. The former CEO of AmeriTrade decided to run against our Democrat in the Senate. He brilliantly opened up his campaign with a series of attacks on the incumbent. He was asked privately to knock it off. He persisted. He was asked publically to stop, and he replied, "No, you have name recognition. I'm not going to let you use that against me." The incumbent replied, in a very PC fasion, "Do you believe in this strongly enough that you would encourage me to use the same tactics?" I forget the exact response, but he agreed. Big mistake.
In about a week, the state was well-informed on his voting record against raising the minimum wage, firing 1,000 Omahans at the same time he gave himself bonuses (about $3mil) and a raise (from $3000 to $5000 an hour), and threatening a state employee to have his property evaluation ridiculously overturned to keep his taxes down. (I forget the exact figures...basically, bought a house for $1.4mil, assessor appraises it at $1.3mil, he goes down to the courthouse and very uncouthly demands it gets dropped to $850k. Next round of appraisals, it's appraised at $1.5mil, and he again demands it go down to $850k.)Needless to say, every Republican up for re-election in the next two years has no comment about the challenger.
