Mike Lux at Open Left makes the case:
I'm going to argue here that the Scott Kleeb race is one of the places we ought to make that gamble in. Nebraska is a Republican state, for sure, but so are the others I listed above. Scott's opponent Mike Johanns is a fairly well-liked former governor, so he will be tough to beat, but he's not an incumbent and compared to the well-established incumbents referenced above, he's no more formidable than any of them, and can't point to seniority, committee chairmanships, or pork he's brought home as the incumbent to bolster his case. The fact that Johanns was Bush's Agriculture Secretary, given the messy politics of the farm bill, isn't going to help him either.
The polling on the race also shows that Scott has a shot at this thing. One private poll I'm aware of shows only a 10-point gap, which would put this closer than Slattery in Kansas, Hagen in NC, and Noriega in TX, all races that many of us think are potentially winnable. And what that poll does not reflect is that young people in NE are registering Democratic by a two-to-one margin over Republicans, and that there is some serious outside organizational money being put into youth registration and turnout in NE.
The latest public poll, released by Rasmussen today, shows Mike Johanns with a 60-33 lead. But Kleeb has shown an ability to close the gap before and he'll need to do just that in order to win in November.
One way to close that gap is to keep hammering Johanns on his ties to the Bush administration. As The Politico pointed out last week:
In his bid for Nebraska's open Senate seat, Mike Johanns has a problem. On the one hand, he's eager to tout a résumé that includes a stint as secretary of agriculture. On the other, he's reluctant to fully embrace his former boss, President Bush, at a time when the president's approval ratings are at record lows.
While Bush is more popular in Nebraska than in most other places, Johanns still faces the conundrum confronting Republican candidates across the country: what to do about the lame-duck president.
Johanns, a former governor who's running for the Senate seat left open by the retirement of Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, has so far charted a middle course that navigates between full flight from Bush and a hearty embrace.
Kleeb points out, rightly, that Johanns close ties to Bush go back to the very start of his campaign:
"One of the first things [Johanns] did was hold fundraisers with Bush," said Kleeb. "It's very hard to distance yourself when half of your money comes from your work in the White House."
No doubt that Mike Johanns took this valid criticism of his record as a bitter personal attack, and decried the "partisan bickering." |
