Randomly Noted

Let’s hope Nebraskans’ aversion to the cringe-worthy pork-barrel politics of Sen. Ben Nelson ushers in a new American politics this year – one where self-interest is sidelined and the national interest prevails. You may favor the Democrat’s health reform project, you may oppose it – you may, like many people, be uncertain. But it’s hard not to be repelled by the small-bore thinking that got healthcare legislation through the Senate in a pre-Christmas holiday scramble. That the people of Nebraska are put off by the Senator’s politics – forcing Nelson to justify his actions - suggests the intellectual independence of the American people has survived a generation of some of the crassest politicking on both sides of the aisle. If you’ve watched Nebraska politics for as long as I have (26 years and counting), Nebraskans’ reaction to the sweetheart deal Nelson secured for the Cornhusker State isn’t entirely surprising. This is a largely pro-GOP population which nonetheless routinely elects Democrats to the highest offices – some of them free-thinking types such as Bob Kerrey. Nebraskans’ feisty political independence has roots in 19th century prairie Populism. We may well see a (hopefully benign) 21st century Populist variant spread across the U.S. as Americans come out of the funk of severe economic recession and regain their confidence and convictions. Continue reading…

The extravagant courtship of Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson which produced today’s Senate passage of the Democrats’ health reform bill isn’t the first time the thinly populated state has played a disproportionate role in a crucial policy debate. In May 1985, Sen. Ed Zorinsky cast the key vote in President Reagan’s landmark budget-reduction bill. A young reporter in the Washington, D.C., bureau of The Omaha World-Herald, I covered the Republican majority’s courtship of Democrat Zorinsky and the subsequent ”thank you’s” he received from Reagan and then-Vice President George Bush, who, by the way, invited the Nebraskan to switch parties. (He declined.) Zorinsky, who died two years later, was a more independent thinker than Nelson. By backing the Reagan Republicans, Zorinsky placed his fiscal principles above partisan politics - Cornhusker Democrats have always been a conservative bunch. That said, Zorinsky’s “yes” vote didn’t come without a price; the quid pro quo he secured from the GOP came in the form of a fatter  federal farm bill. Similarly, Nelson has won a passel of pork for Nebraska, a sprawling state with a tiny population, by casting the deciding healthcare vote – this, even as the Democratic majority also caved to Nelson’s attacks against federal abortion funding. Continue reading…