It’s a good time and opportunity to share some lingering observations and nagging thoughts about the recent General Election, which provides another chapter in Nebraska history.
As with each election, this one had unique and significant aspects. For Nebraskans, it featured well-contested races for Governor and a seat in the United States Senate. One of the races for the U.S. House of Representatives produced not only a politically significant result, but one sparked with intrigue; (recall the short-lived, third-rail candidacy of Chip Maxwell?) And, voters in various parts of the state decided successors for 17 term-limited state legislators.
Here’s an interesting tidbit about two of those legislative races: in districts 34 and 38, only one candidate sought the open seat—Curt Friesen and John Kuehn respectively. Now that’s how to get elected: don’t challenge an incumbent and don’t have an opponent.
Congratulations are in order for all victorious candidates. Their efforts were rewarded. They sought the public’s trust; now they face the tasks and challenges of fulfilling it.
More generally, gratitude is due from the collective body of citizens to all those who presented themselves as candidates for public office. Their willingness to express their ideas and share their visions is what makes the highly-valued political system work.
All of the important and positive elements notwithstanding, the election process also has some negative aspects, obviously. Setting aside the evident, alarming aspect of how absurdly expensive they can be (especially for the more elite offices), there are instances as well in which bogus assertions, personal attacks and downright nastiness take negativity to an embarrassing level. Many would-be voters become weary of it.
It would be hard to believe that any of the other 20 contested races for the state Legislature became nastier than that between Matt Hansen and Brent Smoyer in the 26th district. I render that opinion as a (long-time) constituent of that district.
The primary source of my chagrin is constituted of the numerous campaign flyers that were either mailed or hand-delivered to the house during the fortnight leading up to the election.
The election for Nebraska’s legislature is officially non-partisan, but this race became highly partisan. (Undoubtedly, there were other legislative races similarly infected.)
The Nebraska Republican Party put money behind a repeated charge that Hansen fits among those who are “forcing Obama’s immigration laws on Nebraskans.” The “Obama liberals of Nebraska believe illegal immigrants deserve the same rights and benefits as hard working Nebraskans.” The “Hansen plan” included “a pathway to citizenship, amnesty.”
That’s bogus and ludicrous, if for no other reason than that a pathway and amnesty are inapposite concepts: amnesty doesn’t need a pathway, it’s granted; and a pathway doesn’t conform to the immediacy of a declaration of amnesty. As as a matter of political tactics, though, it was crucial to get that word “amnesty” printed on an attack piece.
The Smoyer campaign also pushed the exaggerated, fear-mongering rhetoric that the candidate would fight to stop “the flood of illegal aliens pouring into our state” and that illegal immigration is “a threat to the safety of our families and communities.”
The Nebraska Democratic Party put money behind attacks on Smoyer that were just as offensive, if not more so. Labeling him an “extremist,” the obvious tactic was to manipulate the legitimate policy debate over governmentally coercing employers and other taxpayers to pay for sterilizations and contraceptives—including drugs that can induce early abortions—to encompass other health issues.
The obvious strategy was to make District-26 voters believe that “Smoyer’s backers oppose making affordable mammograms and other lifesaving preventive care available to women at risk for cancer” and “will allow insurance companies to continue to deny health coverage for those who have pre-existing conditions, even children, making it impossible for many of them to access the care they need.”
Anyone moved to look into such accusations was advised to check with the state’s Accountability and Disclosure Commission about Nebraskans United for Life, which endorsed Smoyer.
Bogus and ludicrous hardly begin to describe such a tactic. District 26 residents apparently were supposed to accept as truth a presupposition that Nebraskans United for Life not only opposes coerced payments for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilizations and contraceptives, but also for affordable mammograms, cancer-preventive care and coverage for the pre-existing conditions of children. And Smoyer, by virtue of the endorsement, holds the same views.
Just manipulative, reprehensible tactics.
Earlier, some organization that identified itself as Citizens for a Better Tomorrow sent a flyer that called Smoyer a “serial liar” and falsely accused him of going for “three government paychecks,” as if concurrently.
By the way, Hansen won the election, comfortably. Nonetheless, shame on both campaigns.
And finally… along a much different vein, here’s a final election observation: U.S. Senator-Elect Ben Sasse’s victory speech, i.e., the one televised from the celebration site, was, well, rather odd. It struck me as more a philosophical admonition, with a political bent, than a yay-team, we-did-it, now-let’s-celebrate-and-then-proceed-to-make-a-difference message.
