Voters' Guide
Pages 4 and 5
Uncle Ben?
Nebraska's governor and
Democratic candidate for Senate has
established a parental rote hi the
eyes of some Nebraskans. And if
Nelson does head for the ll.S. Senate,
the gubernatorial seat will change
hands.
Pages 6 and 7
Hagel-ing support
Chuck Hagel's campaign has
been picking up steam since M began,
and the race for the U.S. Senate is
looking to be a dose one. Negative
campaigning from both sides is
making the race ugly.
Page 8
Rematch
In the 1st District race tor the
U.S. House of Representatives,
incumbent Doug Bereuter once again
Is feeing underdog Democratic
■ f£& ft, - u . . -
challenger Patrick Combs.
Page 9
Whose House?
In Nebraska's other races for the
U.S. House of Representatives, both
Republican incumbents are leading
in pre-election polls.
Page 10
Taking an initiative
This election year, balot initiatives
such as 411 and 412 are getting -
nearly as much attention as the
candidates.
Page 11
Across Nebraska
Andrew Sigmon Is hoping to give
incumbent Nil Regent Nancy O'Brien
a run for her money, and several
glaie Legislature races - and seals
-are wide open.
(
Foregone conclusions?
Nebraska election season lackluster despite full ballot
From The Associated Press
Bob Dole knows it won’t do him
any harm to forego campaigning in Ne
braska. President Clinton knows that
campaigning here probably wouldn’t
do him any good.
No Democratic presidential candi
date has carried the Comhusker state
since Lyndon Johnson overwhelmed
Barry Goldwater in 1964. Democrats
hope Clinton can claim one of the
state’s five electoral votes by winning
a majority in the 25-county 1st Con
gressional District, which includes Lin
coln. But they aren’t betting on suc
cess.
The GOP has numbers on its side.
There are 484,973 registered Republi
cans; 374,787 Democrats; 117,485 in
dependents and 97 Libertarians in the
state.
Anne Boyle, an Omaha Democrat
and Clinton supporter, said that in
presidential races, “the people in Ne
braska have pretty much trained them
selves that they look at the party first.”
The Nov. 5 election has been lack
luster in Nebraska despite an (pen Sen
ate seat and state ballot questions on
such issues as gambling, taxes and edu
cation.
“It may be that the presidential race
is a foregone conclusion both ways,”
said Robert Miewald, a University of
Nebraska-Lincoln political science
professor. “Dole will carry the state and
Clinton will win the election.”
Johnny Podkonyak, a farmer and
rancher in Garden County, was disap
pointed in the presidential race.
‘To me it’s a sorry situation that you
can’t get two better guys than this,” he
said. “I don’t think we’ve got much of
a choice. Neither one of them inpress
me.
His interest also has not been
piqued by the race between Democratic
Gov. Ben Nelson and Republican
Chuck Hagel to replace the retiring
Sen. James Exon, a Democrat.
“I don’t know that there’s any big
difference on an issue that’s got
anyone’s attention, or comes to mind,
with Nelson and Hagel,” said
Podkonyak, 63, of Lewellen, a Demo
crat. “I think Nelson’s done OK as gov
ernor and I’ll probably go with him.”
With a few weeks remaining before
the election, he had not studied two
controversial constitutional amend
ments involving property taxes.
Political analyst Richard Shugrue,
a law professor at Creighton Univer
sity, said lack of interest in elections is
easy to understand.
“Two things have happened,”
Shugrue said. “One is the whole
dumbing down of politics across the
board, from local school boards to U.S.
Senate races. It has generated almost a
demand for bumper-sticker explana
tions of everything. The public atten
tion span has pretty much been de
stroyed through constant bombardment
by television.”
Nelson led Hagel, 51 percent to 38
percent, in a telephone poll conducted
Oct. 14-16, but 11 percent of those sur
veyed were undecided. The poll by
Mason-Dixon Political/Media Re
search Inc. of Columbia, Md., had a
margin of error of 3.5 percentage
points.
The Republican Party has thou
sands of volunteers to walk precincts
and work telephone banks for Hagel
in the last two weeks before the elec
tion, said Kevin Fry of Ewing, the 3rd
District GOP chairman. He said they
view the election as a chance to have a
Republican from Nebraska in the Sen
ate for the first time since Sen. Dave
Karnes was defeated in 1988.
Nebraska’s three Republican con
gressmen were favored to win re-elec
tion.
In the Omaha-area 2nd District,
Rep. Jon Christensen faces Democrat
James Martin Davis, a lawyer and
former Secret Service agent. Rep. Bill
Barrett of Lexington faces a marginal
challenge to a fourth term from Demo
crat John Webster of Ord. Rep. Doug
Bereuter of Lincoln seeks a 10th term
and a second victory over Democrat
Patrick Combs of Lincoln in the 1st
District.
Deja vu: Defeated candidates
create rematches of ’94 races
From The Associated Press
WASHINGTON—Defeated in the
Republican landslide of 1994, former
Rep. Ted Strickland took to showing
up at his successor’s Ohio appearances
with a video camera, gathering ammu
nition for his comeback bid.
Connecticut Republican Edward
Munster came so close to winning last
time, he attended an orientation semi
nar for new House members. He’s run
ning against Democratic Rep. Sam
Gejdenson for the third time.
In Southern California’s 36th Dis
trict, Republican Susan Brooks spent
most of last year contesting the results
of the 1994 election, which she lost to
Democratic Rep. Jane Harman by 812
votes out of 195,808 cast. This year,
she’s battling Harman again.
These campaigns, including
Nebraska’s 1st District House race, are
a few of 1996 congressional rematches
—55 in the House and two in the Sen
ate.
“A lot of these people didn’t stop
running—the campaign was continu
ous,” said pollster Lee Miringoff, di
rector of the Institute for Public Opin
ion at Marist College, N.Y. “Some of
these people who ran once and were
competitive got a taste of it.”
The recent record for challengers
winning in a second go-around is not
promising. In 1994, incumbents won
in all but five of the 50 House
rematches. The 10 percent of these
rematches won by challengers was only
slightly better than the 9 percent vic
tory tally for all challengers vs. incum
bents that year.
In the Senate rematches, Minnesota
lover photo by Jay Calderon, sc
M
A lot of these people didn’t stop running
— the campaign was continuous.”
•o' ; 4 - nr ',*!■*: . * . . . *
Lee Miringoff
pollster
Democrat Paul Wellstone is defending
the seat he won by 2 percentage points
in 1990 from Republican Rudy
Boschwitz. And North Carolina Sen.
Jesse Helms, one of the Senate’s most
conservative Republicans, again faces
Democrat Harvey Gantt, who finished
6 percentage points behind Helms six
years ago.
Several House rematches are re
plays of some of the closest races from
1994.
None was closer than the
Gejdenson-Munster contest in
Connecticut’s 2nd District Gejdenson,
who had survived a Munster-induced
scare in 1992, avoided the 1994GOP
juggernaut by winning 43 percent of
the vote in a three-way race, edging out
Munster by a mere 21 votes out of
186,071 cast. So uncertain was die fi
nal outcome that Munster attended
courses for newly elected officials in
Washington.
“Fifty-seven percent of die people
in the last election voted for someone
other than Sam Gejdenson,” Munster
notes on canqiaign swings through the
eastern Connecticut district.
Gejdenson runs as though Munster
were the incumbent, tagging the Re
publican with embracing House
Speaker Newt Gingrich’s agenda.
ulptures by Jim Mehsling an
Surprisingly, only two of the 33
Democrats unseated in 1994 are run
ning this year: Strickland’s challenge
of Republican Rep. Frank Cremeans in
Ohio’s 6th District, and in North Caro
lina, David Price’s effort to regain the
seat he narrowly lost to Republican
Fred Heineman.
Months after he lost his seat by
3,402 votes out of 179,124 cast,
Strickland was back at constituent
meetings—this time not his own but
those of his successor.
“My intention is to find out what
he’s doing,” Strickland said, wielding
a video camera at one event last year.
Cremeans, in an interview, recalled
Strickland’s admission that he kept
pointing the camera even after he ran
out of film.
“I think antics like that are inappro
priate and kind of foolhardy,”
Cremeans said.
In California’s 22nd District, Rep.
Andrea Seastrand was among the in
cumbent Republicans who barely hung
on in 1994. Having defeated Democrat
Walter Capps by 1,563 votes out of
109,008 cast, Seastrand again faces
Capps this year.
Forty of the 55 House rematches
involve Republican challengers who
lost in 1994.
d design by Aaron Steckelber
Americans
less hostile,
poll finds
From The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Ameri
cans are feeling less hostile to
ward government andtheirown
members of Congress since Re
publicans won control of the
House and Senate by exploiting
anti-Washington sentiment, a
poll suggests.
That development hasn’t
clearly benefited one party over
the other in congressional races,
the Pew Research Cento- survey
found.
Among likely voters, 48 per
cent said they intended to vote
for Democratic congressional
candidates and 44 percent fa
vored Republicans.
But when asked which party
should control Congress if
Clinton wins, 46 percent said Re
publicans and 42 percent said
Democrats.
None of that ambiguity was
found in the presidential race.
Clinton led Dole 50 percent to
28 percent among likely voters,
with 6 percent backing Ross
Perot.
The Pew survey suggests
Dole has dented people’s trust in
the president by attacking his
ethics, but he has not drawn vot
ers to his side by doing so.
It also found that while
people favor Dole’s proposed
15-percent cut in income tax
rates for themselves, they believe
it would be bad for the country.
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