Kleeb says growing dissatisfaction fueling campaign

By ROBERT PORE, The Grand Island Independent
Posted Nov 01, 2008

The story of why Scott Kleeb is running for the U.S. Senate is written all over his Chevy Silverado pickup.

In the past week, more than 400 people across Nebraska (including Grand Islander voters on Saturday) have taken a marker and expressed their frustrations about what's wrong with America all over Kleeb's pickup, along with their support for the Yale graduate and Nebraska ranch hand.

Those voters' frustrations run deep, based on what people are writing on Kleeb's pickup. A sampling of the concerns ranges from jobs to health care, to education, to the way people around the world see the U.S., to crime on the streets. It is a virtual laundry list of concerns Nebraskans have across the state, Kleeb said.

He and his pickup were in Grand Island on Saturday morning as his campaign as the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate heads to the finish line in his race against Republican Mike Johanns.

Voter writes their concerns on Scott's truck in Kearney

In a race where a lot of people thought it was a "no-brainer" about who was going to win, especially with Johanns' experience and name recognition as former Nebraska governor and secretary of agriculture during the Bush administration, Kleeb said the race is closer than a lot of people would expect.

As a matter of fact, Kleeb said, the race is "neck-and-neck."

That's not only based on internal polling from his campaign, but also anecdotal observations from the campaign trail and what people are telling him and writing on his pickup.

Why does Kleeb believe the race is tight? It's because he believes that a large number of Nebraskans think the nation is going in the wrong direction and it's time for a change.

That's not just a Nebraska phenomenon, Kleeb said. Nationwide, he said, a record-high number of people have registered to vote this year, and many of them did not wait for Election Day to vote.

Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale estimated that 72 percent of Nebraska's registered voters will turn out for this year's election.

Registered Democrats now outnumber Republicans in Douglas County by 3,600 voters. Across Nebraska, there are 17,300 fewer Republicans registered to vote this year compared with four years ago.

Kleeb, who was defeated two years ago in the 3rd District congressional race by Republican Adrian Smith, said the 3rd District will again play an important role in his campaign.

And he is optimistic about his chances in this traditionally Republican stronghold as many longtime Republican voters are telling him that this year they're voting for him.

Though Kleeb lost by a 10-point margin against Smith in 2006, it was the closest election in the 3rd District since 1990.

"It could determine whether or not we will win this race," Kleeb said.

A new Zogby International Poll of Latinos nationwide found that Sen. Barack Obama had 72-percent support among Latino voters.

One of the people who signed Kleeb's pickup Saturday in Grand Island was Felipe Cruz. He said both Obama and Kleeb have strong support in Grand Island among registered Hispanic voters, who he anticipates will turn out in record numbers Tuesday.

In 2006, Hispanic voters were estimated at 40,000 in Nebraska.

Before his rally at Grand Island's Central Community College on Saturday morning, Kleeb greeted voters at the Farmer's Daughter Cafe and the Lions Club, which was holding a pancake feed.

What's concerning more and more people in Nebraska, including the ones he visited with on Saturday in Grand Island, Kleeb said, is that the economic downturn is starting to impact people not only in Grand Island and the 3rd Congressional District, but throughout Nebraska.

And those worries are running deep with those voters Kleeb is reaching.

• With a large percentage of the 3rd District population aging, the economic downturn has dramatically shrunk people's retirement savings. It's estimated that 401(k) retirement savings have lost $2 trillion in the past 15 months.

• State farmers are concerned about next year's crop as input costs go sky-high and commodity prices are falling below the cost of production. Costs to get crops in the ground will jump by about a third in 2009, fueled by fertilizer prices expected to surge 82 percent for corn and 117 percent for soybeans, according to a recent study from the University of Illinois.

• Nebraska's 3rd Congressional District is the nation's leading ethanol producer among congressional districts. But on Friday, VeraSun Energy Corp., which owns ethanol plants in Ord, Central City and Albion that have an annual production capacity of more than 265 million gallons of ethanol or about 15 percent of Nebraska's total ethanol production capacity, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

• As average annual tax revenue growth in Nebraska over the last decade has been about 5.5 percent, on Friday, the Nebraska Economic Forecasting Advisory Board approved a forecast that shows revenue being only 1.4 percent higher next fiscal year than the current year.

"This revenue forecast clearly demonstrates that the national economic slowdown is starting to impact Nebraska," Gov. Dave Heineman said. "The next two-year budget will be a challenging and difficult budget cycle."

• According to the AARP, 22 percent of Americans are uninsured or underinsured, 50 percent of all bankruptcies occur in part because of unpaid health care bills and 1/4 of ranchers and farmers struggle to pay health care premiums for themselves and their families.

Family health insurance premiums in Nebraska grew three times faster than wages from 2000 to 2007, according to the U.S. Dept. of Labor, the U.S. Census Bureau and others. The average premium for Nebraska families rose 69 percent during those years.

• One in 10 Nebraskans struggles with hunger. At the same time, food prices have increased 6.1 percent from June 2007 to June 2008.

• Twenty-five percent of America's homeless are military veterans as military medical facilities, such as the one in Grand Island, are struggling to provide adequate care to veterans because of the lack of funding.

"Is this what we give back to those who have served their country?" Kleeb said.

And the list goes on, he said.

To show the level of dissatisfaction, Kleeb referred to a recent poll showing that only 8 percent of Nebraska voters think the country is headed on the right track.

"It's not about (political) parties," Kleeb said. "Voters want new faces. The system is broken."

For more images from the "Countdown to Change Tour, visit Scott Kleeb's Flickr page.