Tuesday, July 18, 2006

NRL Endorsement Back Story

In case you missed it, in today’s Lincoln Journal Star, Don Walton gives the back story on the Nebraska GOP stalwarts’ effort to get Nebraska Right to Life’s endorsement for Pete Ricketts (Tension marked Nelson endorsement – LJS – 7/18/06). Leavenworth Street’s position on this can be read below.

An interesting aspect in all of this is all the GOP sluggers that came to bat for Ricketts: Jeff Fortenberry, Kay Orr and Don Stenberg top the list. (And Stenberg’s call is one of the most intriguing, considering the bitter primary that he was a part of. Sure, there may be some self interest in this, but he made the call nonetheless.)

The LJS says, “others” called NRL. So who was asked to call, but didn’t? Was Dave Kramer part of that others? Chuck Hagel? Dave Heineman? Lee Terry? Hal Daub? Tom Osborne (who would have his own axe to grind against them)?

Did any of these calls make a difference? Probably not. It’s likely that Julie Schmit-Albin and the gang had their mind made up on the endorsement, and a collect call from Ronald Reagan wouldn’t have changed their minds.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What is this 'bitter primary'? i hardly even remember a primary at all - it was barely a blip on the radar screen. Aside from stenberg (stupidly) not wanting to do debates and Ricketts dropping a cool $5 million, there was nothing noteworthy about this race at all - and nothing that Don shouldn't have gotten over the day after.

If Ricketts is having problems with his base, that's because of his candidacy - not some divisive primary.

Street Sweeper said...

You know if you stop smoking now, your short term memory may come back. Try reviewing the Leavenworth Street archives, and you can work on it.

Anonymous said...

shorter street sweeper - oooohhh busted!