First, a lay of the land from columnist Dawn Cribbs of the McCook Daily Gazette:
We are polarized. We have red states and blue states, each one with red or blue streaks crisscrossing the field, dividing city, county, neighbors and friends. It makes for a colorful quilt pattern, from a distance, but up close and personal, you can practically cut the tension with a knife.Even though the national elections are still nearly a year off, we see candidates priming the pump by pumping as many hands as they can in a day in every evening newscast. Wake me up when it's over.
I sometimes fear we've seen the best days of the United States and are now watching the slow decline of democracy and representative government. Few of the candidates bear any resemblance to me, and wouldn't know how to live as I live if my life was suddenly thrust upon them. How long do you suppose it's been since any of the front runners had to pump their own gas or carefully watch the total lest they spend more than they have budgeted? I can't help but be suspicious of those who earn high positions of leadership by spending other people's money better than the next guy spends other people's money. Whatever they try to win and to woo my vote, its probably going to be too little, too late.
There's little to add to Cribbs' feelings except to note just how widespread they are. The petty divisions we now face -and the failure of Washington to bridge them and move forward- have given birth to a wildfire of angst no longer confined to one party or one president. By and large, the public has gone from questioning the conduct of the Bush Administration to challenging the structure of our politics as a whole.
Republican pollster Bill McInturff noted this when he recently claimed "this is the most angry and unstable of an electorate as I've seen in my career"... and he ought to know. In 1991, McInturff collaborated on a study of another angry electorate: the Pennsylvania voters who sent an obscure state officer named Harris Wofford to the Senate over the popular Dick Thornburgh, himself a former two-term governor and Attorney General for the first President Bush. That's a race worthy of a second look right now:
When incumbent Senator John Heinz died in a plane crash on April 4, 1991, no Democrat had been elected to represent Pennsylvania in the Senate for almost thirty years. Charged with naming an interim replacement for the now empty seat, Governor Bob Casey had a hard time finding any Democrat who wanted the job. The prospect of losing to Thornburgh in a November special election was enough to drive away all prominent names from business and government, and in the end Casey turned to his Secretary of Labor Wofford: a 65-year old veteran of the civil rights movement who had never sought elected office before.
For months the campaign proceeded just as one might expect. Early polls showed Wofford trailing 65-21%. Filled with justifiable hubris, Thornburgh remained in Bush's cabinet and above the political fray before lazily rolling out his campaign in August with a speech that centered on his experience having "walked the corridors of power" in Washington. Sensing an opportunity, the Wofford campaign attacked:
"James [Carville] got me on the radio phone two minutes after Thornburgh had said it," Wofford said. "He said, 'I think, Senator, you should go right out in front of City Hall [in Philedalphia] and give them your pitch that you want to turn Washington inside out, turn out the insiders.'" Wofford followed Carville's advice and, as he put it, "we got in all the original stories... saying it's the people in the corridors of power who let us down. Let's turn them out."
Germond and Whitcover, <u>Mad as Hell</u> p. 68
Wofford defeated Thornburgh 55-45 in November, signaling a tidal wave of discontent that would eventually propel the candidacies of Clinton and Perot in '92. Two years later this wave was joined by another, more party-specific force that drove Republicans to power in Congress. In our decade the partisan waves may have came first, but either way the tsunami now headed towards Election '08 has reached heights that ought to send any would-be Dick Thornburgh running for the hills. And I don't mean Capitol Hill.
That's why I believe the cautious among us -those who worry Scott Kleeb would prove a "sacrificial lamb" to Johanns and urge him to bide his time- are playing by a rulebook that simply won't apply to this cycle. But then again, so is Mike Johanns. Sec. Johanns committed a potentially fatal mistake by allowing the Republican party to clear the field on his behalf (a show of force that even Hal Daub admits "creates a sour taste in a lot of people's minds"), and inviting the President to fundraise for him can only add fuel to that fire.
People like Cribbs aren't looking for someone with Washington experience and connections, they're looking for someone with a connection to their community and a life experience of helping real people deal with real problems. Scott Kleeb is that someone, and this is the best chance he'll ever have to prove it.
Right now these voters are disenchanted, but if things don't start changing soon they will simply become disengaged. Their suspicions of the traditional sources of privilege and power offer Nebraska Democrats an opportunity, but that door won't remain open for long. This year will require a different kind of candidate, one who exercises a different kind of politics. Lucky for us, we have just the man for the job.
If you believe in this potential, help us make it happen. Sign up and Pledge for Kleeb today.
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