Great post from the New Nebraska Network on Dem chances in the federal races this year. The short of it is that while races in the 1st and 3rd congressional district might become interesting, chances are that they won't.
I was actually more interested in this particular passage:
In my opinion, the single most important development in the 2006 election cycle - hands down - is the series of television ads supporting Ben Nelson's 2006 reelection expressly on behalf of the Nebraska Democratic Party. So far, two such ads have run - the first on Nelson's 15 years of leadership in developing ethanol and the second on his role in rural America's battle against the scourge of meth.
They are good commercials - no doubt - emphasizing the multitude of ways Nelson's independence and experience have worked to this state's advantage. But, the fact that these ads state that they are "paid for by the Nebraska Democratic Party" is even more important than their actual content. Why? Because it's the first testament to the fact that the Nebraska Democratic Party even exists in any substantive way that many Nebraska voters have seen in a long, long time.
In what can only be seen as a show of confidence and strength on his part, Nelson's willingness to newly align himself with the Democratic label - even as he spurns it with many of his votes - is the clearest opportunity in years for Nebraska Dems to awaken from their partially self-imposed political exile.
For 2006 to be a success, it must be a year of rebranding and rebirth. Nelson's reelection is, of course, the most essential component to either effort, with his popularity and his style of leadership opening doors in the minds of voters for a new idea (for better and worse) of what it means to be a Nebraska Democrat.
I have been saying the past two years that the big difference between, say, Brian Schweitzer in Montana and David Freudenthal in Wyoming is that the former isn't afraid to say he's a Democrat while the latter is. So one is branding the Democratic Party, using his popularity to build the party, while the other does nothing to build his state's moribund Democratic Party brand.
I'm happy we have Freudenthal, but he doesn't excite me the way Schweitzer does. Because if we're to revive the party in the Mountain West and the South, people need to see clearly that Democrats aren't the scary caricatures that the Republican noise machine has made them out to be.
I've always appreciated Ben Nelson, despite a voting record that joins Democrats maybe 50 percent of the time, because he's never used his platform to trash the Democratic Party (like Joe Lieberman does). But he never did much, either, to build the Democratic Party.
That is clearly now changing. The tide is turning. And while this may be a small thing, in states like Nebraska, big changes sometimes need to start small.