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15 October 2008
Nebraska Races Pit Youth Against Experience
Young Democrats face uphill battles for U.S. Senate and U.S. House seats
Washington — The youth vote is an important story in the 2008 U.S. elections, but in Nebraska the bigger story might be the youth candidate.
In the Nebraska 1st Congressional District, Democrats are pinning their hopes on Max Yashirin, a 25-year-old veteran of the war in Iraq, who says he wants to go to Washington to fight for the middle class and to ensure all children have access to high-quality health care and good education. He is outspoken on the need to better equip U.S military personnel and to provide better care for returning veterans.
A Lincoln resident who lists his occupation as “community support associate,” the Russian-born Yashirin studied international business, Russian and economics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL).
Yashirin faces an uphill battle against three-term incumbent Jeff Fortenberry, a former Lincoln city councilman who promotes the use of alternative energy sources, the revitalization of rural communities and entrepreneurship. Fortenberry’s 47 years — fairly young by congressional standards — make him the old man in this race.
On October 3, Fortenberry voted against the financial recovery plan that passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 263 to 171. He might be able to capitalize on the unpopularity of that measure with Nebraska 1st voters.
“Clearly, America faces serious economic challenges,” said Fortenberry in a statement on his Web site. “However, the decision today was not a choice between action and inaction. Rather, it was a choice about whether to adopt a potential $700 billion taxpayer liability … or to consider alternatives that may be less costly, easier to implement, and fairer to most Americans who have no blame for this mess.”
SENATE RACE ECHOES “CHANGE” THEME
Another relative youngster in Nebraska politics is Democratic senatorial candidate Scott Kleeb, who at 33 already has run for Congress. The 2006 contest, although unsuccessful, gave Kleeb a strong base of support in the Nebraska 3rd (western and central Nebraska) and statewide name recognition.
But the name recognition enjoyed by the Republican candidate, Mike Johanns, is even broader. This former mayor of Lincoln, former governor of Nebraska and former U.S. secretary of agriculture resigned his federal post in the Bush administration months ago to campaign for the Senate seat.
With a theme reminiscent of John McCain’s presidential campaign, Johanns told reporters that “Nebraskans are anxious for someone who has the ability, background and experience to go back and go to work to fix Washington.”
Like Republican McCain, Johanns seems to be distancing himself from the federal government that employed him for years, a point emphasized by Kleeb, who told reporters the kind of experience Johanns touts has led the nation into its growing problems.
Kleeb, much like Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, maintains the choice facing voters in November is between embracing change and maintaining the status quo.
“We can demand new ideas that uphold our finest and oldest traditions, or we can settle for the same failed old policies,” Kleeb says on his Web site.
Johanns and Kleeb are contending for the seat vacated by retiring Chuck Hagel, a popular Republican senator whose re-election had seemed all but guaranteed. Hagel has not endorsed either candidate.
Ben Nelson, the other senator from Nebraska, has been nicknamed the Senate’s “reddest Democrat” for his conservative stance on many issues. An early supporter of Obama, Nelson has endorsed Kleeb, saying, “He’ll be a worthy partner here in the Senate.”
COULD NEBRASKA SPLIT ITS ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTES?
Nebraska and Maine are the only two states that award their Electoral College votes by district, rather than awarding all votes to the statewide winner of the popular vote. Neither state has ever split its votes, but Nebraska could do so in 2008, a point probably not lost on Sarah Palin, who made a campaign stop in Omaha, Nebraska, October 5.
Recent Democratic presidential campaigns have invested little in solidly Republican Nebraska, where no Democrat has been victorious since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. But the Obama campaign has opened field offices in ethnically diverse Omaha, and student groups supporting Obama are active on the University of Nebraska campuses at Lincoln and Omaha.
The Obama campaign started canvassing Omaha neighborhoods in August, and John Berge, director of Obama's Nebraska campaign, confirmed in September that efforts are focused in the 2nd District, a relatively small geographic area that comprises Omaha and its suburbs.
The Republican Party in Omaha has mounted a similar canvassing effort and has no intention of abandoning the city to Obama. "There will definitely be a McCain presence here," according to the campaign’s executive director, Matt Miltenberger.
AGRICULTURAL ISSUES IMPORTANT TO NEBRASKA 1ST
As one might expect with a farming state in the heart of America’s breadbasket, agricultural concerns are important to voters.
Brad Lubben of the Department of Agricultural Economics at UNL said voters are wondering "how much does this election matter to agriculture and does agriculture have a stake in this."
Agricultural interests seems focused on two major campaign issues — trade and energy — and they are issues on which Obama and McCain have sharply different views, Lubben said.
"Nebraska's farm interests are really up for grabs in this election," Lubben said in the university newsletter Crop Watch. "Some might support the trade policies of McCain over Obama and others might support the energy policies of Obama over McCain."
This article is part of America.gov’s continuing coverage of seven of the 435 U.S. congressional districts during the 2008 campaign. Each offers a different prism from which to view U.S. politics. For more information, see U.S Elections — State and Local.
