Candidates wait to announce bids
CAMPAIGN from page 1
signature and a check for 1 percent
of the job’s salary.
In the case of governor, that’s
about $650.
The timing of all this depends
on the candidate and sometimes has
strategic motives behind it.
“He thought it was important to
make it official so the people of
Nebraska would know that he is
definitely in and what his message
was,” said David Wintroub,
Breslow’s campaign director.
But the other two, Johanns and
Christensen, have made it abun
dantly clear they are running with
out officially jumping in the hopper.
“He is running,” said Vicki
Powell, campaign manager for the
Johanns camp. “It’s just that we
haven’t thought about when exactly
we want to make the formal
announcement.
“I don’t think it’s necessary (to
announce this early).”
John Hibbing, a University of
Nebraska-Lincoln political science
professor, agreed.
“Anymore, it’s becoming less cru
cial when they become official candi
dates,” he said. “Especially when you
hold another position like they do.
“You might not want to give the
impression you are neglecting your
duties.”
Andy Abboud, Christensen’s
campaign director, said announcing
early was useless.
“I think professionally it’s a
waste of voters’ money,” he said.
His camp won’t officially
announce his candidacy until early
next year.
Sittig said it was anything but a
waste.
“For those people who aren’t
well-known, who don’t have the
same high standing with the public
like Christensen,” he said, “it is def
initely not a waste of money.
“They have an uphill task.”
Every one of the candidates, and
any others who want to be part of
May’s general primaries, still have a
few months before they officially
have to file.
The deadline to file with the
secretary of state’s office is March
1, and the four camps have said they
probably wouldn’t file until early
next year.
If they don’t file, they don’t
appear on the ballot.
“Filing next year isn’t late at
all,” Hibbing said. “Right now is
actually kind of early. We’re still
more than a year from the elec
tion.”
But officially telling people
you’re running for governor does
have its benefits, Wintraub said.
“Since the announcement, the
campaign has kicked into high
gear,” he said. “We’ve received hun
dreds of calls to join our team. It’s
made a huge difference.”
But the Johanns camp is satis
fied with how things are going right
now and isn’t worried about what
the other candidates do.
“We’re taking it slow right now,”
Powell said. “We’re just getting him
out, going all over the state and
doing the media right now. That’s
really our goal right at the moment.”
Teach English in junior and senior high schools in Japan
Learn about Japanese culture and people
Gain international experience
• Have an excellent command of the English language
• Obtain a bachelor’s degree by June 30,1998
•Be a U.S. citizen
„• Be willing to relocate to Japan for one year
(f
Bennett designs
campaign plan
BENNETT from page 1
could compel him to enter the race
by straying from the issues.
“If I see that some of the issues
that I’m interested in are not being
discussed by the announced candi
dates, then that will only strengthen
my resolve to get in the race,”
Bennett said. “I will not be an antag
onist, but a catalyst.”
Bennett said he wanted to
address the problem of health care
coverage, particularly for children.
As a member of Gov. Ben Nelson’s
Blue Ribbon Coalition for health
care reform, he worked with Nelson
on a plan to insure 28,000 uninsured
children.
He also said the state must
address economic development,
juvenile crime and the influx of
methamphetamine traffic in
Nebraska.
Bennett said as governor he
would seek to build consensus rather
than push his own agenda, an atti
tude he attributed to his being a
“non-politician.”
Bennett has held various offices
in the Buffalo County Democratic
Party. He was the county coordinator
for Nelson’s successful re-election
campaign in 1994 and for Nelson’s
failed bid for U.S. Senate in 1996.
Bennett was a delegate at the past
two state Democratic conventions,
as well as the 1996 Democratic
National Convention in Chicago.
Bennett said one of his goals as a
candidate would be to energize
young voters. The 18-to-21 -year-old
vote, he said, is “the least-utilized
vote” because young voters don’t
realize its power.
“It’s important to get young peo
ple really involved in the process of
selecting a candidate for governor,”
Bennett said. “I think I’m the kind of
candidate who could do that.”
Pol Pot expresses no
remorse for regime
Leader faults Vietnamese
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP)
- In his first interview in more than
18 years, Khmer Rouge leader Pol
Pot expressed no remorse for the
genocidal regime that caused the
deaths of as many as 2 million
Cambodians, although he admitted it
“made mistakes.”
“You can look at me: Am I a sav
age person? My conscience is clear,”
Pol Pot told American journalist Nate
Thayer last week at the guerrilla
group’s jungle base in Anlong Veng.
The Hong Kong-based Far
Eastern Economic Review magazine
released excerpts of the interview
Wednesday, and it was to appear in
today’s edition. Video of the inter
view was being distributed exclusive
ly by Associated Press Television.
Pol Pot, now 69, took power after
a 1975 civil war and embarked on a
Maoist-inspired campaign to turn
Cambodia into a vast labor camp.
Hundreds of thousands died from
overwork and systematic executions
before Vietnam invaded and toppled
the Khmer Rouge in 1979.
Bedridden now and mostly con
fined to a hut with his second wife
and their 12-year-old daughter since
his former comrades sentenced him
to life imprisonment in July, Pol Pot
admitted “our movement made mis
takes.”
am ne claimed me Kjimer Kouge
also saved the country from
Vietnamese domination. “We had no
other choice,” Pol Pot asserted.
“Naturally, we had to defend our
selves. The Vietnamese ... wanted to
assassinate me because they knew
without me they could easily swallow
up Cambodia.”
The Khmer Rouge long have
claimed to be the defenders of
Cambodia against Vietnam and har
bor a special hatred of Hun Sen, a
former guerrilla who escaped bloody
purges in 1977 and returned to head a
Vietnamese-backed government in
the 1980s.
Pol Pot remained the Khmer
Rouge’s reclusive leader during a
long guerrilla war against successive
governments. The group began to
break up in 1996, and the last faction
Pol Pot led turned against him this
year.
Pol Pot defended ordering the
execution of thousands of political
opponents and denied an estimated
20,000 people were tortured and
killed at 1\iol Sleng, a Phnom Penh
high school.
«
You can look at
me: Am la savage
person?
My conscience is
clear.”
Pol Pot
Khmer Rouge leader
Pol Pot blamed most of the deaths
during his regime, including those
from mass starvation, on Vietnamese
agents. “To say that millions died is
too much,” he said.
Independent researchers have
estimated the number of deaths at
between 1.7 million and 2 millibri.^
But Ta Mok, the commander of
the Khmer Rouge military who
Thayer also interviewed, said: “It is
clear that Pol Pot committed crimes
against humanity. I don’t agree with
the American figure that millions
died. But hundreds of thousands,
yes.”
It was the iirst time a Khmer
Rouge leader admitted there were
more than a few thousand deaths dur
ing their rule.
Pol Pot described how he ordered
the June 10 assassination of his long
time colleague, Son Sen, the former
Khmer Rouge defense minister |
whose death, along with 14 relatives,
led to Pol Pot being toppled by his
former comrades,
“You know ..; the other people,
the babies, the young ones, I did not
order them to be killed,” Pol Pot said,
“For Son Sen and his family, yes, I
feel sorry for that. That was a mistake
of when we put our plan into''prac
tice.”
Pol Pot described a long list of
health problems, including a possible
stroke in 1995. He was sentenced to
life imprisonment in a show trial in
July that was witnessed by Thayer
and a cameraman. Human rights
advocates have said the trial was a
mockery of justice and urged that Pol
Pot be brought before an internation
al tribunal.
Thayer, a former correspondent
for The Associated Press, was the
first outsider to see Pol Pot since
1979.
