The Field is set

The Field is set for the April 7th Omaha Mayoral primary.

Your candidates are:

Former Omaha Mayor and former 2nd District Congressman, Hal Daub.

Omaha City Councilman, Jim Suttle

Omaha City Councilman, Jim Vokal

Rickes Equipment field technician (with a degree in Evangelism), Randy Brown. 

And all around Omaha and Nebraska candidate, Mort Sullivan. 

So with the election just four weeks away, here is our re-analysis of Who Wants to Face Whom.

We gave our initial analysis back in December, but that has changed a bit now, especially looking at the actions of the candidates themselves.  So we think...

Daub: would rather face Suttle

We were skeptical of this at first, believing Daub would not want a R vs. D matchup. But the more we look at it, this may be just what Hal wants. He may figure that hard-core Democrats are going to vote against him anyway, so they may as well have Suttle to get behind. 

And intelligent observers of the race are likely to discover what we have in Councilman Kookypants' proposals. So if Daub can pull in the R's, and enough of the D's who believe he really has the best ideas, then he can pull off a win -- if not clobber Suttle.

Daub may not want to face Vokal, because he would instead have to split some of the R votes with GOPer Vokal, and then risk losing all the Dems that planned to vote against Daub anyway. While Daub may feel that he could still out-experience Vokal, the math works better for him in a Suttle matchup.

Daub's statements of late also indicate that he would rather face Suttle. He has hit Vokal on the sex-offender flap - praising Suttle's vote. He has praised Suttle's "effort" in coming up with the Papal Toboggan. And the other day, even left-handedly, he praised Suttle's Econ plan. If he has praised Vokal, we haven't seen it. But we wouldn't expect to hear Daub praising Suttle in a general election matchup.

Vokal: would rather face...Suttle

This is an iffy situation, but we are going to say Vokal would rather face Suttle. While, as mentioned above, we think Daub may feel he could have a tougher time against Vokal, that doesn't mean Daub would be easier than Suttle for Jim Vokal. 

As with Daub, Vokal could make it a straight up R vs D match with Suttle, and then hope to pull over some Ds. In a matchup with Daub, he could in theory pull in many more Ds and also his own Rs. But this could be more difficult with an opponent like Daub. But then again, we could go the other way on this as well. Toss up.

Vokal's camp seems to slam both Daub and Suttle equally, so we can't get a read from them on who they'd rather go up against. But then again, Vokal will likely have a battle in the primary, so he needs to hit them both at any chance.

Suttle: would rather face Vokal. 

Suttle and Vokal will both face name ID issues. If Suttle is up against Daub, that's one more battle he would have to face.  Suttle is better off facing a another City Councilman like himself who voters will need to get to know.

If he's facing Vokal , he can play up the Dem (i.e. Obama) thing, but still try to make himself to be the middle-of-the-road candidate -- a cool-headed Dem to those wacky GOPers. 

He could do it against Daub as well, but the road could be rockier.

Randy Brown would rather face Mort Sullivan.

Now THERE's a general election...

Mort Sullivan wants to face a flying bear, in the wild, with his bare hands. 

The bear wants to run home to its mommy.

OK, what's your theory, politico?

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Ya we here at Leavenworth Street love us some Monday morning, LJS, Don Walton column. It's one of the few places in Nebraska main stream media to find some pure, well-informed, political commentary.

But...this morning... Don, we got it, on the fourth note. You think Ben Nelson is a moderate. Centrist. In the middle. Of it all. 

Got it...

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The kids over at the NNN have got some commentary up regarding the Lincoln City Council. And we are all for more info out there for our well-educated readers. But we would just note that while we endeavor to cover local politics outside of Omaha, sometimes we are just a tad too busy.

So while there are more and more blogs out there, we would just point out that if there was a conservative blog to cover local Lincoln politics, it would certainly serve all interested individuals to have another choice for the Lincoln news. 

If it was interesting, we'd sure read it.

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On that note, we will do our best to summarize the Omaha City Council races this week. 

If any of the candidates have websites for us to link to (and a photo of your candidate), an email would be much appreciated.