Cead Mille Failte

Top of the mornin' to ye, and all that. 

Before you head on down to the Dubliner or Barrett's or your favorite watering hole for a nie pint of Guinness or three, we present ye with a little St. Paddy's Day nod from two of your candidates for Mayor of Omaha, (from Saturday's parade).

(We asked and asked from Camp Suttle, but no response...)

Kudos to both campaign for going that extra mile (or is it kilometer?) for the parade, for that single day's use.

First to the Vokalians for the special parade banner:

And then to the Daubites for the shirts:

It's that one day expense that you gotta do, right?

***

Jim Vokal came out yesterday with his Development Plan for Downtown Omaha.

The very expansive and fairly detailed plan includes bridges, restaurants and ball fields galore. It envisions development of the Riverfront and the surrounding area far beyond the way it stands now.

With a swipe at his opponents, Vokal said, "This is not a bloated stimulus-type plan thatcalls for unnecessary expansion of some existing facilities at an unknown cost to taxpayers."

You can see the entire plan, which includes a satellite map of the areas affected, by clicking here.

(What, you can't get that from any of the other media sources? Well I'll be...)

Of course the boo-birds came out as well on Vokal's plan. Jim Suttle says "The Mayor has proposed to do a master plan that's long overdue for the entire downtown. Let's let the professionals put this plan together to see what works and what doesn't work."

Well, actually it was the City Council who approved funding for the the Master Plan spearheaded by Suttle's old company, HDR. But the idea that the Mayoral candidates should sit on the sidelines, as Suttle here suggests, is goofy. Wonder if the Master Plan will include Toboggan Runs, ice rinks and economic development in Iowa.

While Vokal says that he does not propose public money to be used for his plan, "Mayoral candidate" Randy Brown had a good zinger, "I just wonder where all these investors are going to come from that are gonna want to invest in a city that can’t afford to turn on the lights on the walking bridge." (Ah, but in a City like Omaha Randy, there are always investors....)

***

For the gang out in the Third District's Greater Nebraska (as opposed to those Omahans and Lincolnites in "Lesser Nebraska"), here is part of a short interview of Congressman Adrian Smith by the conservative Heritage Foundation:

Heritage Foudation: What does “Conservatism” mean to you?
Adrian Smith: It means thinking about the future in applying the principals established by our country’s founders. We have more than 200 years of evidence that conservatism works, and we need to apply it moving forward in all areas. I don’t need to remind readers the key to a successful civilization is economic freedom. The challenge now is to live up to those ideals.

What is at the top of your ‘I tunes’ play list right now?
Michael W. Smith and Vota

Name three interesting guests (living) you would like to host for dinner.
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia

Who was your influence in conservatism?

Ronald Reagan (for obvious reasons) and a taxpayer from Denmark whom I met years ago who showed me just how out of control government can get.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?
Having the freedom to pursue opportunities relating to my faith while upholding the ideals of our Founding Fathers.

What is your guilty pleasure?
Eating too much after 10:00 p.m.

What is the first website you visit every morning? (Heritage.org excluded!)
www.kneb.com

What is the last book you read, and do you recommend it?
Currently reading several excellent books, but one which springs to mind is When Character was King, by Peggy Noonan. Yes, I would recommend it.

What do you worry about?
The value of the dollar, the future of family farming and the “brain drain” in rural America.

Name your hidden talent.
Dabbling in music now and then.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Switching from Democrat to Republican in the 4th grade.

Maddening March

We will start this week of March Madness (and NIT Noodling), with a little Separated at Birth:

Nebraska Lieutenant Governor Rick Sheehy and Kansas Jayhawks basketball coach, Bill Self.

***

Nebraska State Treasurer Shane Osborn had an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, Nebraska Sets the Standard on Government Accountability.

In it, he talks about the website that he put together -- NebraskaSpending.com, which lets you track how Nebraska tax dollars are being spent. Osborn's site has been featured in a number of other places, for a couple of reasons:

One, as Osborn puts it, "As an elected official, the least we can do is give the taxpayers a receipt for the money we took from them." Two, it only cost $38,000 to put it together. Gauge that number against other states that have spent $500,000 to $1,000,000 on similar sites.

Now here's an interesting follow up on this. Nebraska State Senator Tom White -- who is constantly pimping his campaign website JoinTomWhite.com, introduced LB16, in order to force a website similar to the Nebraska State Treasurer's.

White contends that his bill adds in items (like tax-credits for businesses) that Osborn's doesn't have. However, White's bill doesn't cover nearly the amount of different information that the State Treasurer's site already has. 

So if the bill passes, will Osborn be obligated to get rid of things like Nebraska’s revenue sources for each fiscal year or the historical data associated with that? Can Osborn enhance the site, as we understand he plans to do, beyond what the bill says?

Now that's not to say that the site can't be improved. And it probably isn't a horrible idea to have a legislative mandate to have such a site.  But shouldn't it at least recoginize that there already IS such a site, and that you just want to make it better. Hmm, how to do that?

Well if White's proposal is almost exactly the same as the website that is already up, certainly he must have conferred with Osborn and his staff to discuss what Osborn could use to make it a better site. Or to see how the bill could be drafted to make it better for Nebraskans. Or to, just see what's up with the plan and where it's going.

No?

Ya mean White is just grandstanding to try to position himself for the next office to run for? Oh. Got it.

***

We chuckled at the OWH reporter Robynn Tysver's story the other day about Jim Vokal's campaign strategy. The headline of the story was, "Voters to assess Vokal advertising strategy". Really? That's what voters do?

"I really like that Hal Daub fella, and think he would be the best to lead the city...but darn it, I just don't care for his ad strategy. So Randy Brown it is."

We coulda swore that voters look at a candidate's positions on the issues and make a judgment about what's best for the city. Now we are to understand that voters are all about when the candidate went on the air and looked at how much they spent.

Yeah, yeah, we get the analysis. But here's the thing. The headline (at least) is extremely poor if this is supposed to be a "news" story. The fact that the OWH doesn't have a full-time political columnist makes this kind of story necessary -- if they want to discuss it. But it comes across a bit ham-fisted when the OWH reporter writes, "Vokal's financial disadvantage doesn't mean it's over..."

Doesn't mean it's over?? The candidate is already running his third ad and can argue that he is in a better spot than his other city-councilman rival, Jim Suttle (as the CW is that Hal Daub is in the Primary lead). If you make it all the way to the end of the story, you'll see Doug Parrot provide that spin. (Man, Parrott is so in the bag for Vokal...).

But before that, you have to endure the Democrat line of "He (Vokal) rolled the dice and came up short." Well, that's an interesting post-election analysis. But three weeks out, it's just a little pre-mature.

This makes for a nice column. News story? Not so much.

***

There have been a number of comments on the boards the last few days about Lee Terry staff or whatnot lunching with Jim Vokal a city council candidate's staff and this and that about Who Supports Whom. (Note correction. -SS)

Well, we've gotten it from one of the highest sources in Terry Corp. that Rep. Terry supports all the Republican candidates, and does not and will not be showing favoritism to any one candidate. While individuals can certainly do so -- and they all certainly will when they vote -- Congressman Terry is staying very much neutral among the Republicans up for office.

So there ya go.

City Council-ing

The Primary for Omaha Mayor is coming up on April 7th. A few of you also know that voters get to choose candidates for each City Council District that day as well.

"Whaaa?" you say. Oh yeah. There are slew of candidates for City Council, and in the next few weeks you will hear a bunch of names that will become trivia contest answers when you've got your elbows on the bar the following week.

But, in the mean time, we here on Leavenworth Street will try (try) to give you sort of a brief rundown of the races. (WOWT Channel 6 has a nice summary of each candidate and their links here. ) But of the seven City Council Districts (all up), only two of them will have contested primaries -- where there are more than two candidates. And of those two, there is only one, frankly, that we know what to do with.

** UPDATE: Note that all fund raising numbers below are based upon the latest NADC reports, and reflect only the period of 1/1/09 - 3/3/09.**

***

The main contest will take place in District 3, Jim Vokal's present district. It stretches from the river to 72nd Street, and is (roughly) bordered on the north by Cuming St. and (roughly) on the south by Center St. (See a full map here.) 

Your candidates (in alphabetic order) are:
Brian Buescher
Steve Cross
Jim Farho
Chris Jerram
Chip Maxwell
Crystal Rhoades

Now we put up each candidate's logo there (or an estimation of it) (Cross's may be coming), because City Council is one of those goofy elections where yard-signs can matter. In the races like President or Senate, while everyone loves them a yard sign, the name ID is so high that they really don't have much effect. But in a City Council race of unknowns?

Probably the biggest factor a candidate can make is actually walking door to door. Then direct mail and phone calls. Radio and TV are trickier for these offices, but can be effective if you have some cash. But yard-signs can be an interesting test of support and provide more name ID in these types of races. Keep a lookout for those logos.

In any case, while we hate to do a breakdown of "who will win" right now, there will are a few interesting factors:

There are three big names in this race: Chip Maxwell, Brian Buescher and Chris Jerram.

Maxwell is a former State Senator and Douglas County Commissioner. In November 2008, he lost a bitter, close race for re-election to the board to former Omaha City Councilman Marc Kraft. To see just how much that still affects Maxwell, see the "Record" part of his webpage where he knocks all the points that Kraft made against him in that campaign. He probably feels that he has to address those point that were made just a few months ago -- though it makes for sort of a different account of his record.

In theory here, Maxwell will be bumping heads with Brian Buescher. Buescher is a lawyer with Kutak Rock, and is a former chair of the Douglas County GOP. Buescher declared early for this race and has been garnering cash and support -- raising over $25K (with $21K COH), to Maxwell's $11K (with $1300 COH).

Now the "battle" between those two could be for the heart of the GOP voters. But then again, while Vokal defeated Ann Boyle in this district, it isn't exactly a GOP enclave. Maxwell's name ID is arguably higher, and if he can soak that, he could have a shot.

The other major candidate here is Chris Jerram. Jerram is (another) lawyer, and former head of the Douglas County Democrats. Jerram has solid support among the local Dems, and has also some solid fund raising -- $31K (with $28K COH).

The only thing that could muck things up for Jerram a little are the candidacies of Jim Farho and Crystal Rhoades. While both are political newbies, they are both very involved in their neighborhood associations, and have each raised around $5K. And both are Democrats. Assuming that they won't make it to the final two, can their campaigns leach enough off of Jerram's support to kick up Maxwell and Buescher?

It will be an interesting night on April 7th for District 3.

Oh, and Steve Cross? We emailed Steve, and he was a little miffed that he didn't have more notice to get his info to us. He responded "I read books, not blogs and I surely have never heard of this particular one." Ouch!  (We will update once we receive.)

**UPDATE** See the link for Cross's site above!

***

The other main contested Primary is in North Omaha's District 2. Ben Gray, James English and Cheryl Weston are taking on Councilman Frank Brown.

This race should easily come down to Brown vs Gray. And while we would give incumbent Brown the advantage (with $11K COH),  we wouldn't count out Gray who is raising a little cash himself ($5K from Wally Weitz, and a grand apiece from Susan Buffett and Mike Yanney) ($4K COH). It could be one to watch come May. 

***

Some of the other races will be interesting, but don't really kick in until after the primary (though don't tell the candidates that):

The race for outgoing Councilman Dan Welch's District 5 between Jean Stothert and Jon Blumenthal is already a battle. Heck you mention macrame and coffee here on Leavenworth Street and somehow if turns into a Stothert versus Blumenthal diatribe in the comments section.

We don't discourage it, mind you, but their supporters love to mix it up. Both of them are working doubletime to capture the flag in May, but in the mean time we'll just let them box it out in the streets.

West Omaha's District 6 between incumbent Franklin Thompson and former Mayoral aide Walt Peffer could be interesting if Peffer puts some effort into it.

On the face of it, we have to guess that Mayoral aide Pete Festerson will walk away with Jim Suttle's old District 1, Gary Gernandt will handle his reelection in District 4 and of course Chuck Sigerson will laugh at all those hustling around from his uncontested District 7.

***

OK commenters! We're guessing there are a few opinions out there on all of these folks. Have at it.

Just be civil, no swearing, and try to use a name other than Anonymous...

More Daub TV

The third (total) Hal Daub for Mayor spot, entitled "Getting the Job Done", is now up.

See it here:

We like these people talking at the camera ads, generally. It's always good to have some "average" citizens pimping the candidate. 

And to Joe Jordan's critique from yesterday of all the ads, (he noted that Daub's ad was lilly-white) note that this one has: a white woman; an African American woman; a Latino woman; an African American man; and closing it all up with another white woman. (Oh, and a old whitey dude - Daub.) Heck, this could be a Children's Tylenol ad.  Take THAT Joe!

Our only problem with this is that it was clearly scripted. These are better done when the person is told to maybe talk about a theme, then uses his or her own words. Maybe that was done here, but it seems more like each line was memorized.

(Also, we need to tone down crazy-Hal-smiling-face at the end! Yikes.)

In any case, Daub's rotation of ads will give viewers a break from seeing the other ads over and over and over.

It keeps getting more fun.

***

One of our readers wanted to point out Robert Nelson's OWH column (an "Online Special"!) today about the Mayoral candidate websites.

We saw Nelson's column, which seemed to focus on Suttle's goofy picture viewer program.  Funny thing was, Nelson ended his analysis of Suttle's page talking about the group photo and how well put-together the site is.

Of course he failed to point-out that the photo and the site are all the product of a $65 template that you too can find online.  (See L. St.'s discussion here.)

He then knocks Vokal's website for being too spartan -- and harangues one of Vokal's videos (which is sort of a separate issue --which we've discussed -- from his website).

He loves Daub's website -- but still seems to be worried that Hal wants to create Lake Ashland.  (Now THERE was a cool idea....)

***

Thanks to the City Council candidates who have sent us photos and website links.  Any others out there, we would be happy to take.  

Our email address is on the top right of the page.

All Three TV

All three of the major candidates for Omaha Mayor have their new TV ads up.
See them here (and we'll comment on them, and the money race, later this morning).

Hal Daub, "Securing Our Future"




Jim Vokal, "One Candidate"




Jim Suttle, "Nothing Subtle"



***

All Three TV

Our thoughts on the ads:

Hal Daub, "Securing Our Future"
All around good piece. Hal sitting in a bright Christmas sweater in a classroom, happy guitar music, then immediately dropping "murder rates are up", could be softened. Maybe just stick with "violent crime". Also maybe less teeth in the smile at the end, but otherwise, the message was good. Daub talking about different ideas seems to resonate. People expect that he is thinking outside the box, and this spot conveys that.

Jim Vokal, "One Candidate"
We're fine with the message that Jim Vokal is putting out: He'll work to fix the pension issue. And spelling out what the early retirement figure is what people will take away from this spot. That's been the theme of the past month, and Vokal will try to ride it.

Here's our only problem with this ad. Where is Vokal looking? Is he looking off at the off-screen "interviewer"? Or is he looking at the camera? It is probably the former. But when the closeup comes at the end, its hard to tell if he is looking to his right, or looking at the camera and has a lazy eye.

Jim Suttle, "Nothing Subtle"
This is Suttle's intro piece and it's not bad. It seems to be a little light on Suttle's background, which is really his strongest selling point. Sure there's the giant "30 Years" on the bridge (more on that), but it doesn't say where his experience was, in what, or what his position was. "Building big projects"? OK, so was he putting in rivets on bridges, digging ditches, what? (We know the answer, but the public doesn't.)

OK, so then there's the rest of the imagery going on. First off, let's just say that we HATE the honky-tonk guitar. "Hey, we're Midwestern! Aren't we all Folky!" (Shuddering.)

Then there are the giant graphics, which again will be the take-away from this spot. And not necessarily what they say. Just the image alone. We were reminded of them from the opening title sequences from movies such as "North By Northwest", "Heroes" and "Panic Room". (See a shot from "Panic Room", beneath Suttle's images at right.)

While these images look really cool, you end up looking at the graphic itself, as opposed to what it says, and the message it's supposed to convey. They also fail to use Suttle's campaign logo.


But our final thought on Suttle's spot is...THE GIANT RED JACKET. Hey Jim, maybe try a sweater? A light pullover? Or, maybe just tough out the cold. It reminds us, alternately, of Ralphie's brother Randy, from "A Christmas Story" or George Costanza's giant Goretex jacket (that he kept knocking stuff over with).

Next time Jim: Fleece.

***

Then we come to the money game. At the time of writing this, the NADC website doesn't seem to be updated yet, so we go from the info in the OWH story. 

The candidates' fund raising from January1 through March 3:
Daub: $173,886
Suttle: $125,951
Vokal: $91,143

Cash on Hand:
Suttle: $185,370
Daub: $183,581
Vokal: $68,544

These numbers show solid leads by Daub and Suttle over Vokal. The fund raising numbers show particularly that Daub is continuing to rake it in, and Suttle is gathering up the cash from (likely) Democrat donors. Vokal, on the other hand, is battling Daub for GOP dollars, and is clearly coming up short.

When we turn our attention to Cash on Hand, we see similar numbers, this time with Suttle and Daub neck-and-neck and Vokal way behind. Now, the Vokal camp has argued that they already spent around $60K on TV in January. At that point, they took the opportunity to begin the air war and get Vokal introduced to the public.

Then came the Omaha Police Union flyers and the flap that they caused, and Vokal continued to get publicity. Some of it bad, to be sure, but it gave voters the opportunity to learn more about him in any case.

Daub also hit the airwaves in January, arguably to counter Vokal's early ads. Daub's strategy at that point was likely insurance for the primary, but also to make sure that he was not letting Vokal get an edge on him for the general.

But Vokal has to worry about getting to the general first. So will his gamble of going on TV early -- and spending the cash -- pan out for him? Suttle is just now introducing himself to the broader public, but his camp's argument is that it's at a time when the public is finally paying attention. So is he "wasting" time with his intro ads now, or is it the prime time to be noticed?

In any case, with all three major candidates on TV, it's interesting to see what their ad spends are for this week:
Suttle: $27,000
Daub: $25,000
Vokal: $15,000

Again, Suttle has to go strong in his initial buy. Daub won't be sitting back (or probably be sitting down) from now until May. Is this buy strong enough for Vokal, considering he went up initially in January? Vokal's manager says, "When we say we're going to have the money to compete, we're going to have the money." Hmm.

Well, one way to look at it, for Vokal, is that he first needs to get to the general. If he has to spend all his cash to get there, then he can probably raise enough in the final month (arguably) to compete. While he can't go dollar for dollar with Suttle in the final four weeks, does he have to at this point?

Interesting question. Interesting four weeks to come.

Things have kicked in.

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?

***

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...

***

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.

***

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.

Hal Daub: Union Man

The OWH reports today that Omaha Mayoral candidate Hal Daub will receive endorsements from "many" of the 33 unions and their 20,000 members that make up the Omaha Federation of Labor.

Of those 33 unions, the OWH contacted 14 of them. Of those 14, 3 said they are endorsing Daub -- the Plumbers, the Steamfitters and the Omaha City Employees -- and 2 -- the Painters and Plasters & Cement Masons -- said they could be leaning toward Daub. The other 9 contacted by the OWH said they were undecided.

However, OFL's president, Terry Moore said that Daub will take in the many after they all make their decisions next week. The significance comes from the fact that the OFL has never endorsed Hal Daub in his political career.

A couple of quotes from Daub's new supporters:

"We'd rather have a Democrat in office than a Republican," said Mark McColley, the (Steamfitters) union's business manager. But, he said, the union thinks Daub is the strongest candidate.

Daub "has a history of not supporting labor and labor issues, of not sticking up for the working people," said Patrick Stoysich, business manager of Local (Painters) 109. "But I'm being told he's moving in a good direction for all of us."

Not only is that a pretty strong endorsement of Daub ("ordinarily we would never support him, but now we do"), but it's pretty damning of the Democrat candidate, Councilman Jim Suttle. Even with the caveats that those guys presented, they still are not willing to support Suttle? Ouch.

Unorthodox support like that for Daub makes him a very powerful candidate going into April...and May.

***

Just yesterday we featured the Lincoln City Council candidacy of lingerie and electronics salesman "Dr. John" Haltom.

But no sooner do we talk about Dr. John's campaign then we get the startling news that Dr. John has a felony conviction (for selling porn to minors) in Utah, and therefore is probably restricted from holding office in Nebraska.

The Nebraska Constitution reads:

No person convicted of a felony shall be eligible to any such office unless he shall have been restored to civil rights.

But as Lancaster County Election Commissioner Dave Shively points out, "he accepted Haltom's filing for office because he is registered to vote, as required to run for office". So here's a question: If you can't actually hold (or be eligble for) office, can you be barred from filing for office? (Well...probably.)

But in any case, Dr. John is really way ahead of his (unstated and denied) goal of getting more publicity for himself. Filing for election? Check. Getting an additional article written about him because of his possible denial to file? Check.

Possible court case on the way in order to stop him? Check check check.

U-S-A! U-S-A!

***

GOP Mark Fahleson in a release yesterday:

A week ago Sen. Nelson was seen at the State of the Union fawning over President Obama like a teenager at a Jonas Brothers concert.

We enjoy the pop-culture references coming out of the GOP. Mark has three daughters, and should know about such.

And just the other day I was asking, What ever happened to Menudo...

(Nice looking website for the NEGOP, by the way.)

***

KMTV's Joe Jordan has an "exclusive" that Governor Dave Heineman is endorsing Hal Daub for Mayor.

Hmm. But where have we heard that before? Hmm. Hmm. Oh yeah:

"Heineman will endorse Daub", Leavenworth Street, January 14, 2009.

***

Deadline today for filing for the Omaha Mayor's race. Surprises? Not likely.

Return of the Facebook campaign

Remember back in the day before the interwebs, when campaigns were campaigns? If you wanted voters to see your ad, you actually had to buy TV time. If you wanted people to read your thoughts, you had to write a letter (a letter! with a stamp!) to the editor and hope they actually published it.

And if you were running a campaign, you would give a phone call to the local press to try to push your point across.

Now?
It's all about Facebook, baby!

Case in point: The other day (Sunday, March 1st), KFAB radio morning host Scott Voorhees asked his "Friends" on his Facebook Wall if they had any topics for his upcoming show.

And then here were two comments by people on different sides of the Omaha Mayor campaign: Trenton Magid, President of the Coldwell Banker Commercial World Group and friend, fundraiser, co-worker and a top supporter of Councilman Jim Vokal; and Brinker Harding, campaign manager for Hal Daub. See the exchange here.

What really caught our attention here was (what we perceived as) the attack by Harding on this issue. We've seen the Daub supporters go out of their way to attack Vokal on this point. And Hal Daub mentioned it, sort of offhandedly in an interview with KPTM (which no one saw). But this was the first time we saw Camp Daub really come out publically on this issue.

So we asked Brinker Harding what was behind the comment.

Brinker said that he and Magid have known each other a long time -- both being in the real estate biz together (though at different companies). He said, "We throw jokes back and forth. I saw his post and thought I’d have a little fun with him."

Well...except, in Facebook protocol, he should then have sent Magid a private message or whatever. Instead, it went to Voorhees and 805 (and counting) of his closest Friends (and now, you).

Harding also noted that he didn't see Magid's follow-up response and declined our request to comment any further about it.

So here is what we propose: Let's just do it all on the Series of Tubes. Let's have the first Mayoral debate, via IM, on Facebook.

We can even bring back Calvert Collins from her new gig in Las Vegas to host it.
She's a Facebook vet...

***

And who says there's no interesting politicking going on west of Omaha? Not us!

Hey look who is running for one of the three at-large City Council seats in Lincoln: Dr. John!

Who you ask? Oh, like you never glanced at Dr. John's adult novelty emporium on 72nd and Pacific in Omaha, or just off the interstate in Lincoln? Or that you've never been up aisle four where the sell all the colored...uh...well, anyway... he has some stores that sell "adult" items.

And if you've watched the news in the last few years you know that Dr. John (we're not sure whether he has an M.D. or a Ph.D) is really John Haltom. He has been arrested several times on obscenity charges, mainly for the videos he sells at his stores. And as he has said in the past, arrests is good for bidness!

But anyone who has tried Googling the White House knows that you can't swing a dead cat on the intertubes without being offered porn of some type. Is there anyone really going to Dr. Johns to purchase video tapes? Do they still sell video tapes? Anywhere?

So what is a guy like Dr. John to do if he can't get the pub by being arrested? Run for City Council!

According to the LJS, he says that he will, "work to protect people’s rights, improve snow removal, push the state to allow more billboard advertising along the interstate, promote the return of $8 million in a special assessment fund to taxpayers and work to reduce taxes."

So you see folks, Dr. John is all about the snow removal.

That, and marital aids. (We now open the floor to insert your joke here!)

***

Senator Ben Nelson has been getting the wrath of the liberals of late. Uber-lib blogger Chris Bowers of Open Left has declared that Nellie and his cohort of "Moderate" Democrats are now "The Opposition".

Of course this stems from Nelson's sticking his foot into the stimulus package to get it dropped from 900 gazillion to 899 gazillion. And now Nelson is saying that the President's budget is too high as well.

All this sort of makes us sigh.

The lefties are up in arms at someone like Nelson, but he is actually perfect for the President. The Prez and Reid and Pelosi propose some ridiculous plan, then conservative Benator jumps in and says "hold on there!" Everyone steps back, let's Nelson chip off a few porksicles from the whole process, and then the Libs pretend to grumble about ALL that they've given away.

Nelson looks like a hero -- and will probably get reelected for as long as he wants -- while the Libs' proposal has 99-100% of what they wanted in the first place.

That's some racket they've got going there.

And in the mean time, Nelson gets to stand next to Rush Limbaugh on the Lib bloggers Most Hated list.

(shaking head in amazement...)

Suttle for Mayor...of Council Bluffs

Jim Suttle came out with his Economic Development Plan for Council Bluffs yesterday.

In it, he proposes Omaha build a bridge to Eppley Airport so that the people of Iowa can get there faster, and build an industrial park in Counciltucky. (We kid Bluffs! We kid!)

You can read the complete press release from Suttle by clicking here.

Hmm. Where to go with this...

Well, we don't want to totally bash on Suttle's concept. His theory is that if the whole area succeeds, Omaha succeeds. And if this bridge (just two miles down the street from the Mormon Bridge, by the way) is built, then the people from Omaha -- specifically North Omaha -- can go to work in Iowa and everyone wins.

Interesting plan. Except this plan is just only slightly thought out more than the Papal Toboggan (you knew we had to mention it).

See, in Suttle's initial press release, the plan was to use President Obama's Federal Stimulus money "to fast track construction of the new Gateway Bridge..." (that would be the Obama Gateway Bridge, to you).

But then someone pointed out to Councilman Suttle that the Stimulus money had to be spent only on projects that were ready to go within the next 90 days. So Mr. Suttle, sped around to say,

"If you look at the stimulus package right now, it's going to take projects off the shelf and they're going to be completed. This will free up other projects to move up."

Oh, we see. So what you wrote in your press release a few hours earlier is no accurate at all. Well then.

And tell us again how this "Bi-state compact on taxing authority and profit sharing for the greater good" works again? No details? Huh.

Jim Vokal slammed Suttle's plan pointing out that no one exactly has $45M sitting around to build a bridge.

Hal Daub was a little more subtle to Suttle, stating that his (Daub's) economic plan "focused on realistic and achievable programs to grow the economy". (Emphasis ours.)

And then you know how we feel about bridges to no where....

***

Note Daub's left-handed compliment to Suttle, praising Suttle for re-suggesting Daub's Economic Development Director, and the note on "realistic" (i.e., non Iowa and Pope-centric proposals).

We would note that on that point, Vokal stated that he thinks the EconDev Dir. position is unneeded. I guess we were surprised that this position doesn't exist in the Fahey administration anymore. This seems like exactly the kind of position one would want in Omaha.

We would even go so far as to say that the public will be waiting for Vokal's Economic Development plan. So far he has proposals to pare down the city budget and fix the pension funds. But the next step will be to propose how to grow the city.

Maybe this is best left for the final month of the primary campaign when people really begin to focus. But it is an essential element, no doubt. Omahans like economic development proposals. Comparing and contrasting these could be an essential part of these next five weeks.

***

Our best wishes to Senator Mike Johanns who had a NON-cancerous lobe removed from his lung today. We -- and the Senator and his family we're sure -- are breathing easier.

***

We were forwarded a new report from The Platte Institute for Economic Research, written by John Heieck, addressing the need for changes to the Commission of Industrial Relations -- the state administrative agency responsible for resolving all city employee salary disputes in Nebraska.

You can access The Platte Institute's page, and the report, by clicking here.

If you've never visited their page, or been to any of their presentations, they are an interesting think tank focusing on Nebraska. You could do worse with your time.

***

Our look at the City Council races and a new view of the Mayor's race, later in the week.

The Obamaization of the Mayor's race

The other day when Hal Daub announced his economic plan, Councilman Jim Suttle criticized it because it wasn't enough of an Obama Econmic Stimulus. 

We pointed out that Suttle was confused that everything didn't have to relate back to the Obama plan.But it's hard to blame Councilman Kookypants. He was in DC at the time, and probably had Obama-on-the-brain syndrome. 

But then again, ALL the campaigns seem to have a little Obama in them these days. Mainly in the form of their campaign logos. Let's take a look.

***

First let's take a look at the main 2008 Obama for President logo:

There were variations on this pattern, but this seemed to be the main one put forth. The sort of sunrise coming out of the "O", with the three flag-type stripes flying by in an arc (the top part of an "O"?). So where do the Omaha Mayoral candidates come in for their versions?

***

Here is the Jim Vokal for Mayor logo:

The silhouetted city-scape with two-out of three Obama stripes flying by in the arc. Making an Omaha "O" (or an Obama "O")?

How does that compare directly to the Obama logo?

We give it two "Yes We Can!"s.

***

Next is the Jim Suttle for Mayor logo:

Of the three candidates, Suttle is clearly trying the hardest to be Omaha's Obamaniac. He's hoping to suck in all of their vols. He is tying everything he can (as noted above) to the new President. And he's working that logo.

We give it three "Yes We Can!"s.

A couple other things about the Suttle logos.  We were perusing his website, and came upon this click-able image:

And then we thought...Where have we seen that before? Hmmmm...

Oh yeah:

And then there's Suttle's website itself. When he started out, the site had the look of a 1998 website, based on the graphics. We kidded the camp, and questioned why they didn't just let the Secret Penguins guys re-do the entire site, like they did for the little extra page they've done for Suttle.

  

Then a few days later, Camp Suttle re-did the entire homepage, with the over-exuberant flag waving crowd. And we thought, there's no way this patriotic gang are a bunch of Suttle-supporting Omahans, right?

Well, L. St. reader OmaSteak pointed out, the Suttle campaign simply used "Template #19937" offered by BigWebmaster.com.

Chuckle.

***

Finally there's the Hal Daub for Mayor logo.

Daub chose to go with only one Obamaha flying stripe, and we give the final Obamaization of the Daub logo just one "Yes We Can!".

But we found another strange factor in the Daub logo. As many of the campaigns do, there are variations on the Daub logo -- by shades and other factors.

For instance, below we see the Daub yard sign (a plain full blue), the logo used on the Daub webpage (which adds a little "sun" in the "O" on "MAYOR", and then the logo camp Daub uses on their press-release stationery.

Now notice the background used on that final one? Sort of a sun's rays kind of thing, right? So we thought, Where have we seen that before?
And it came to us.
Doubtful that the Daub campaign is trying to compare itself to the Empire of Japan, but an interesting logo choice, nonetheless.

**UPDATE (already)**

A commenter wanted to compare Daub's current logo, to the one he used in his brief 2007 Senate run and we found this from one of his ads (and compare to his current logo):

You can see that back in 2007 Daub used the red underline as well.  Of course it's up to you how much influence Barack Obama has on Hal Daub.  (Hence, only the one Y.W.C. from L. St...)

**UPDATE at 3:19**

A commenter has pointed us to the McCain yardsign design for the basis of the Daub sunburst background on their logo (though note that the background of the actual Daub's yardsign is plain blue). 

So there you go, L. St. readers:  Daub campaign design team's inspiration is John McCain.  Not Tojo.  We stand corrrected.

Sort of...

***

Any other design items we missed? See a freaky yardsign? Send us your designs and camera-phone shots and we'll see what's good out there.

***

And today is the deadline to file for Omaha City Council. We will take a look at all the contenders soon.