Nelson With Solid Lead

For those of you unconnected (or missed same mention in the LJS), Ben Nelson is still kicking Pete Ricketts down the street, according to Rasmussen Reports:

Nelson: 55%
Ricketts: 32%

While the GOP is still hoping against hope on the killer GOTV plan they have, two numbers that severely wound Ricketts: a 54% unfavorable rating, with 25% "VERY unfavorable"...

Heineman Way Up

For those of you who missed this news, or Don Walton's mention, the latest poll numbers on the Gov's race from Rasmussen Reports:

Heineman: 72%
Hahn: 18%

Heineman has an 82% approval rating (read that again).

Nellie the Spy

A little story we heard…

Back in July, Pete Ricketts held a fund-raiser in Washington, DC at the National Republican Senatorial Committee's Ronald Reagan building. The event was sponsored by Senator Liddy Dole and a number of Senators and lobbyists showed up.

But there was one other person, who was not invited, who staked himself out outside the NRSC HQ, on the public sidewalk, and was noting who was going into this fundraiser for Pete Ricketts.

Was it security personnel?

No.

Was it a member of the press?

Nope.

Was it a casual onlooker on his way to Union Station, just curious to see who was supporting Pete Ricketts in his bid to unseat Democrat Ben Nelson?

Not.

It was (drum roll…) Senator Ben Nelson's chief campaign fund-raiser, Don Schimanski! Ben Nelson had his own personal spy sent down to Pete Ricketts' fundraiser to write down the names of all the lobbyists going in to support Pete Ricketts.

What a brash move. By getting them all listed, Nelson can now lean on each and every lobbyist, when they try to set up a meeting with him or one of his staffers. There's probably a good chance that each of those lobbyists now has a black mark next to his or her name.

There may be a strong message sent here: give to Ben Nelson's opponent and the access door for you will be shut.

Interesting way to be doing business for the people of Nebraska…

Mr. Smith Going to Washington?

Republican 3rd District Congressional candidate Adrian Smith today released a poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies for his campaign over September 9-10 and 12, 2006. The poll queried 400 likely 3rd District voters, and had a margin of error of +/- 4.9%.

The findings:

Adrian Smith (R) – 51%
Scott Kleeb (D) – 24%
Undecided – 24%

Name Recognition / Favorable / Unfavorable

Adrian Smith – 74% / 36% / 13%
Scott Kleeb – 47% / 18% / 5%

“Regardless of which candidate you are voting for, which political party would you prefer see control the United States House of Representatives?”

Republican – 58%
Democrat – 30%

Many Dems (such as Bob Kerrey) were expecting the brainy/movie star/cowboy Kleeb to be their knight in shining armor. This seems not to be. With the President’s polls rising, and the 3rd still solidly GOP, Smith just needs to not trip over himself through Election Day.

Leavenworth Street doesn't really care to argue about the merits of the poll itself here. It's by a reputable company and it's results aren't terribly surprising. We take into account that it was done for one candidate, but certainly don't discount it because of that.

Dave Likes Pete

Satellite photo of Dave & Pete

Pete Ricketts finally has an endorsement ad from Governor Dave Heineman on the radio.

As we’ve been saying, and as everyone knows, Ricketts has to dramatically shore up the GOP base in order to have a shot against Ben Nelson. We’ve been looking for an endorsement from some of the GOP brethren, and this is a good start for Ricketts. One figures that a Chuck Hagel ad must be on the way (though that may depend on how Hagel is polling amongst Nebraskans these days).

In an ideal world for Ricketts, he would get endorsement ads from the likes of Don Stenberg and David Kramer as well – but our guess is that they all have their noses pointed towards 2008, and don’t want to seem like they’re giving Ricketts the nod forever.

So, with that in mind, here’s a new experiment with the (late) Friday Afternoon Poll!

What are the odds Tom Osborne will record an endorsement ad for Pete Ricketts? 2:1 10:1 100:1 1,000,000:1 I have no opinion (ala the OWH) Free polls from Pollhost.com

Fortenberry Has Solid Lead

The National Journal (paid log-in required) is reporting a poll today showing 1st Dist. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry with a solid lead over former LG Maxine Moul.

The poll, from Public Opinion Strategies, conducted 9/6-7 and 9/9, surveyed 300 likely voters and had a margin of error of +/- 5.66%.

General Election Matchup
Fortenberry -- 56%
Moul -- 32%
Other/undec -- 12%

Fav/Unfav
Fortenberry -- 51% / 19%
Moul -- 21% / 8%

This would seem to contradict the conventional wisdom that this is a very tight race...

(The Nat Journ also noted that Moul trails Count Chocula and the Trix Rabbit by double digits, but your high-brow Leavenworth Street would not stoop to printing such jocularity.)

Witek, Witek, Witek, Witek or Witek?

In other ludicrous news, since a Lancaster County District Court Judge ruled that Kate Witek should be listed on the November ballot as a Democrat, and Witek obtained enough signatures to be placed on as an Independent, Kate Witek and the Democrats are now claiming she should have her name on the ballot twice for the Auditor’s race. (Dems: Witek should be on ballot twice – LJS – 9/13/06.)

Will the Dems sue to make this happen? How will the Secretary of State respond? Who is this helping?

Another question would be, what happens when voters fill in the oval next to Witek’s name twice? Would that disqualify the ballot?

How would votes be counted? What if Republican Mike Foley gets 40% of the vote, but Independent Witek gets 25% and Democrat Witek gets 30%? Who wins? If I was betting, and since this would of course go to court, I’d say the court would decide that the votes get combined.

But then who knows? Anything could happen. And then there’d be a huge uproar about this, both sides claiming bad faith. Nebraska would be featured in the national press as a bunch of dupes who can’t get their ballot straight. Oh, and all this wouldn’t be free.

So take all this into consideration, when Kate Witek and her new Democrat BFFs come out with this swell plan. And before everyone starts blaming John Gale, try asking why Kate didn’t just run in the Democrat primary for Auditor in the first place.

More Nelson Ad Analysis

Just a little follow-up from the National Journal’s short piece about the Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) ad similarities.

In Nelson’s latest attack ad on Pete Ricketts, he uses images of a couple of women – the previously mentioned “Diner-girl”, and then another depressed-looking woman (we’ll call her “Meth-grrl”).

In the Cantwell ad, Meth-grrl gets this audio:
“For those that feel life is getting too expensive…”


In the Nelson ad Meth-grrl gets:
“Two years later Ricketts laid off another 400 employees…”

(She must have been laid off by Microsoft AND Ameritrade!)

Then in the Cantwell ad, Diner-girl gets this audio:
“…And health-care costs are skyrocketing…”



In the Nelson ad, Diner-girl gets:
“He opposed raising the minimum wage for workers making $5.15 an hour…”

(Well maybe if she wasn’t commuting from Seattle to Lincoln every day, she could stretch those wages.)

We're not going to get too uptight about Nelson pretending that these actors are Nebraskans (though that's certainly the implication).


We just hope that Ben Nelson is paying these actors the lowest rates considering all the royalties they must be piling up…

**Update, 9/13/06**
It seems that Diner-girl has also been making stop-overs in Arizona, as discovered in Arizona Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Jim Pederson's ads. We don't know how she affords homes in three states on that minimum-wage salary of hers...

Debate II Review - Dazed and Confused

Well, let’s get the main thing about Sunday’s U.S. Senate debate between Ben Nelson and Pete Ricketts out of the way:

Who in the name of Jerry Garcia came up with the psychedelic background? We were wondering if the invisible Dale Munson was going to start playing “White Rabbit” and Rob and Julie were going to ask both candidates their favorite song off of Zeppelin IV. Did they misplace the lava-lamps and tapestries at Channel 7 as well? (But we really digress.)

The aforementioned River City Wrangle © turned out to be the River City Ripple ©. There were a couple of new barbs thrown in by each candidate, but no real waves to change the complexion of the campaigns. As in the first debate, we think it’s difficult to claim that either side won, but that always favors the incumbent.

Ricketts tried a few new lines, namely the issues of Nelson not sufficiently supporting troops and his biggie of Nelson never passing a bill. While an interesting point that may gain him a little traction, Nelson seemed prepared for this one, and volleyed back his position as one of the Gang of 14.

Nelson came up with a few gimmicks as well, first proposing that the candidates stop naming each other in commercials and then asking Ricketts for a yes or no on supporting the consumption tax. Ricketts whacked the first back at Nelson, pointing out that he (Ricketts) has gone positive of late, and Nelson has not. The second point had Ricketts hitting back at Nelson for his constituent letter on the point, and Nelson gave nearly the exact same answer he had in Lincoln.

As in the first debate, Nelson referred to and often kept his head down reading from a notebook with all the answers in it. Ricketts had notes as well, though only seemed to use them when searching for an exact number (like “82% of dentists think…”). Nelson also read his closing statement almost verbatim, head down again.

But Nelson was again pretty loose and aggressive. He was on the attack in every question, and was never on his heels with a question. Ricketts too seemed well prepared, but too often was claiming that he had NOT said something that Nelson claimed. The constant defense on what he “is not” has continued to let Nelson frame Ricketts, and takes precious time from Ricketts trying to do the same to Nelson.

We guess we were hoping that Ricketts would come out and lead-pipe Nelson in the knee, or something, so as to stir things up here. Instead we got polite back-stabbing, and in the end no real change in this race.

Unfortunately for Ricketts, he could come onto the stage at the last debate in Scotsbluff riding a lion, and no one will probably notice.

All images from KETV Channel 7.You can see the entire debate, cut up into bite-sized pieces, there as well.

Where did Nelson tell this constituent to go?

See this short story about one of Ben Nelson’s ads in today’s National Journal “Hotline On Call”. Basically, the story is that Nelson’s ad agency is using the same person for shots in both Nelson’s and Sen. Maria Cantwell’s campaign ads. Is the “constituent” Nebraskan? Washingtonian? Hollywoodian? (Stock Footage Alert – The National Journal’s Hotline On Call – 9/11/06.)

4th and long...

Here on Leavenworth Street we have a number of issues swirling around, such as:

• Did the Pete Ricketts camp give a satisfactory response to the latest Ben Nelson ad, considering that they’ve known for months it would be coming? Will the subtle changes to the Ricketts website make a difference?


• Are Chuck Hagel’s diatribes against fellow Republicans in any way helping Republicans – in the short term or in the long run?


• Do any Nebraskans know who State Senator Mike Foley is, and will they take him into consideration at all when they vote?

But, we have a busy weekend ahead of us – we’ll be leaving sometime around nightfall on Friday in order to get to our seats in time for kick-off on Saturday – and we’ll probably just wait for the River City Wrangle © to comment on political stuff.

So, we're punting. Until later...

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-Street Sweeper

Nebraska Dems Spooked by Clinton October Surprise?

As Mel Allen used to exclaim, “How ABOUT that!”

Former President Bill Clinton, who WAS scheduled to speak in the Big “O” on October 13th, has moved his Omaha engagement to … November 11th, four days AFTER the election! (Clinton’s Omaha speech now Nov. 11 – OWH – 9/6/06.)

We wonder if this had anything to do with Ben Nelson and the rest of the Democrats up for election saying something along the lines of, “No, no, no, no no no no-no-no-no-no noooooooooooo, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Can you say 2008?

Here’s a final tidbit to leave you with this Labor Day weekend.
Apparently 2008 isn’t too far away for Presidential candidates or Nebraska Senate candidates!

The rumor on Leavenworth Street – 100% unsubstantiated, we might add – is that Nebraska Attorney General John Bruning is already making calls to get support for a 2008 run at the hopefully open seat left by present-U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel.

The word has it that Bruning even asked for Hagel’s support –which Hagel would not give. (Hagel has stated numerous times that he won’t give info on his political future -- Presidential or Senate run – until after the November 2006 elections.)

Word has it that for about the last three weeks, Bruning has been calling Hagel supporters (gathered on his own) asking for their support.

This could set the stage for a GOP primary battle with other potential contenders such as 2nd District Congressman Lee Terry or any of the three GOP Senate candidates from this year (if Pete Ricketts doesn’t win).

(As for the Dems – any remotely viable candidates?)

No word yet on whether Bruning has yet spent any of his over $600,000 war-chest on yard-signs…