Scott Kleeb is a 32-year-old history teacher and rancher running an upstart campaign for the Senate seat being vacated by Chuck Hagel (R-NE). He will face a primary with businessman Tony Raimondo, who initially joined the race as a Republican but is now running as a Democrat.
Um, a 68 year old wealthy businessman DINO or a young cowboy running a grassroots campaign? Read this guy's bio—he rocks! The choice is pretty clear to me.
Kleeb announced his run and asked for submissions for his logo last month (dammit! I saw that, and forgot all about it!). Well, the response was apparently overwhelming, and they've narrowed it down to the Final Four and are asking for a vote.
They are all pretty good. Vote for a logo here, and throw him a few bucks if your credit card is still out from your Obama donation...
UPDATE: More on Kleeb's primary opponent...Raimondo was on Bush's short list for "manufacturing czar", he is supported by noted turncoat Sen. Ben Nelson, and he relocated one of his Nebraska factories to China. Fuck that guy.
Read this and draw your own parallels...
For months it appeared no Democrat would run against Republican heavyweight Mike Johanns, but suddenly there's two. Columbus businessman Tony Raimondo's been running for two weeks, and now Scott Kleeb's in.
Action 3 News asked Kleeb why he thinks he can beat Mike Johanns, the leading Republican candidate. "People are frustrated with the status quo," Kleeb says. "He's not been able to get a farm bill through. That is critical to Nebraska. He's not been able to address food safety issues."
"Mike has been in government for 25 years," Raimondo points out. "I've been making change. I've been creating jobs."
The 32-year-old Kleeb, who touts his cowboy roots, has become a "young gun Democrat dream." He came out of nowhere two years ago, ran hard for Congress, but came up short in heavily Republican Nebraska.
On the other hand, until he switched parties in December, the 68-year-old Raimondo was a lifelong Republican. Even Johanns couldn't believe the switch. "He's a Republican," Johanns says. "He's supported Republicans."
Raimondo admits he wanted to run Republican, but didn't, claiming Johanns had the party's inside track. "He didn't think he could beat Mike Johanns in a Republican primary," Kleeb says. "He needs to say why he thinks he can beat Mike Johanns as a Democrat."
"Scott comes out of education. I come out of business. What has business had to do with the last two decades," Raimondo asks. "Change. Change. Change."
Democrats insist this Raimondo Kleeb battle will make the winner stronger and better prepared to take on Johanns in the fall. Meanwhile, Johanns can save his money and hope for a bloody Democrat fight.
Apparently Raimondo hasn't updated his campaign website since he began his run as a Republican. The word Democrat appears nowhere on the site. Yeah, I want to pick up seats this fall, but not with guys like this.
UPDATE 2: Kleeb has me fired up to challenge Stabenow...too bad I'm a combination of total introvert and loose cannon...
12 comments:
A. The cowboy's bio is great and he's hot. Good combination.
B. I bet you could temper the loose cannon bit if you had to, although it would be much more fun to see you run if you didn't. Can I design your campaign logo?
A. Yeah, I could see that helping him...
B. No you can't design my logo. i need my indecisive paralysis on designing my own logo to sabotage my Senate run from the start...
Unfortunately I'm neither a hunky cowboy, nor do I have advanced degrees unless you count taking five years to get my BFA as pseudo-grad school...
It's hard to imagine the Nebraska Democratic Party isn't making a big show of endorsing Kleeb — and not endorsing Raimondo.
I can see your anti-Raimondo stance, but what's so great about Kleeb? He's an academic. That excites you?
And while Raimondo is obviously "a rich guy" where do suppose Kleeb got the money to spend his whole life in school . . . and somehow manage to own a ranch and run for public office? Something tels me he didn't have hard-scrabble roots exactly.
I have nothing against him. Hell, I hope he wins. I'm just suggesting you might wanna temper your enthusiasm til you actually know something about him, or how he'd vote on major issues.
By the way, I'm glad to see I'm no longer a member of The Axis! Associate is much better.
(Can I put away my black leather uniform now?)
From Kleeb's bio:
Scott got his Masters degree in international relations, and then a PhD in history, with a special focus on agricultural economics. Awards and honors soon followed. His doctoral dissertation won the prize for best work in Western American history. He won another prize fellowship for outstanding teaching. Scott got a coveted position at the United Nations Policy Planning and Analysis Unit and served as an Associate World Fellow at Yale.
Yeah, a record of notable academic achievement excites me over a lifelong Republican CEO-type. Raimondo will get the endorsement of Nelson and the establishment in Nebraska because he was business partners with Nelson, and because he has agreed to self-fund his primary race to the tune of $500K, which will save the party money.
Admittedly, both candidates are thin on positions, but Raimondo seems to fit right into the mold of the Dem Senators (like Nelson) who always seem to be on the wrong side when shit hits the fan and votes and unity are needed.
I'm done expecting different results from the same old shit. Since I can't rely on the status quo Democrats when the chips are down, I'm more than happy to take chances with fresh blood.
Kleeb might turn out to suck, but Raimondo seems like a lock.
Plus, I'm a sucker for a more people-powered campaign.
And graphic design.
(right, Toast?)
which logo did you vote for? I voted for B.
P.S. I need a logo, too. (hint,hint)
Now and then the Plains States produce a genuine liberal Democrat like South Dakota's George McGovern and North Dakoa's Byron Dorgan. More often, when they produce Dems at all, they produce moderate and right-leaning Dems like Ben Nelson and Max Baucus.
That happens because the populations of those states tend to be much less liberal than, say, New Yorkers and Oregonians. So, it's not surprising moderates like Baucus and Nelson get elected, and having gotten elected that they heed the not-so-liberal preferences of the people who elected them.
Will Kleeb be a whole lot more liberal than the people who elected him, if he wins it? Time will tell, but I would be surprised.
The truth is that Democrats need to do a lot of undemonizing and brand building in places like the Plains States and the border states of the old Confederacy, including Texas.
In the meantime it might not be wise to beat up on people like Nelson too harshly. To paraphrase an old saying, "I felt sorry for myself because my senator was a DINO. Then I met a man represented in the Senate by neocon dipstick Norm Coleman."
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