Bob Kerrey's walk back to the edge of Theodore Roosevelt's arena last week raised the possibility of an epic Senate race in Nebraska next year.
DON WALTON / Lincoln Journal Star ANALYSIS | Posted: Saturday, August 25, 2007 7:00 pm
Bob Kerrey’s walk back to the edge of Theodore Roosevelt’s arena last week raised the possibility of an epic Senate race in Nebraska next year.
As Kerrey peers into the public battleground he left six years ago and ponders whether he wants to try to go back, the underground political world is stirring both here and in Washington.
Kerrey is viewed as the Democrat who would render this Republican Senate seat most vulnerable, raising the stakes for both parties nationally.
Teddy Roosevelt’s storied man in the arena is one “who, at best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly.”
Better, Roosevelt said, to be in the arena than “with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
An attempt by Kerrey to return to the Senate after leaving in 2001 would break historic ground in Nebraska and raise the national profile of its 2008 Senate battle.
When Carl Curtis, Roman Hruska and Jim Exon decided to leave rather than seek yet another term, they called an end to their political careers.
In Kerrey’s view, the right of first refusal this year belongs to Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, his former Senate colleague, fellow Vietnam veteran and friend.
Hagel appears increasingly likely to announce shortly he’ll not seek re-election to a third term, opening the political prize to all comers.
Although Hagel has been under intense attack from core elements of his own party — most notably Attorney General Jon Bruning — primarily because of his positions on Iraq and immigration reform, a stark political fact is sometimes lost in the furor.
Hagel is the only Republican who has won a Senate race in Nebraska in the past 35 years. Since Curtis was re-elected in 1972, the scorecard is Democrats 9, Republicans 2. Both GOP victories belong to Hagel.
The Republican voter registration advantage has grown dramatically during that period, but the overwhelming GOP bulge didn’t stop Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson from romping to re-election last November.
So the record clearly suggests an open Senate seat could be competitive.
Kerrey has won three statewide elections in Nebraska, a gubernatorial contest in 1982 and two Senate races, and never lost one.
That record obviously stamps him as the strongest possible Democratic contender — although the assessment comes with a cautionary caveat: Kerrey has not won an election in Nebraska since 1994.
So factor in the reality that the electorate has changed over the past 13 years.
Would Kerrey be willing to talk now about what motivates or attracts him to consider a return to the Senate?
“Not until I have made a decision,” he replied by e-mail Friday.
In revealing last week that he had told trustees at New School University in New York City he might be leaving as its president, Kerrey briefly alluded to motivation.
As he decides whether to return to Nebraska and seek the Senate seat, he said during a telephone interview, he’ll be balancing personal happiness with the opportunity to “try to do something good for my country.”
The New York Post says Kerrey is “leaning toward” entering the race.
“‘It sounds like he’s thirsty to do it. He was upbeat and patriotic and wanting to serve his country,’” a source told Page Six in Friday’s Post. “‘It looks like he’s just waiting to see if the Nebraska seat will be vacated.’”
Even without Kerrey in the race, The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza already has the Nebraska Senate seat ranked as the eighth most likely to switch parties in 2008.
Republicans will be on the spot nationally, defending 22 Senate seats next year.
Cillizza’s assessment is based on the premise that Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey would be the Democratic nominee.
Fahey is “the likely candidate,” Cillizza wrote, “although former Sen. Bob Kerrey has also expressed some interest and might well have the right of first refusal.”
Fact is, he does. Fahey has said he wants Kerrey to be the Democratic nominee.
Republicans already have a number of candidates, with a luminary of their own in waiting. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns might jump into the race if Hagel opts out.
Johanns also would bring a record of statewide electoral success to the battlefield. He has won two gubernatorial elections, both since Kerrey last appeared on the ballot. In 2002, Johanns was re-elected by a record-shattering margin.
But he isn’t the only notable Republican prospect.
Bruning has won two statewide elections as attorney general, sailing to re-election in 2006 without opposition. He’s already in the Senate race, out of the blocks first and proving he can raise money.
Former Omaha Mayor Hal Daub won four House elections in the 1980s, although he lost Senate bids in 1988 and 1990.
Others in the GOP hunt: Columbus industrialist Tony Raimondo and Schuyler businessman Pat Flynn.
Reach Don Walton at 473-7248 or dwalton@journalstar.com.