NEBRASKA BLUE

Here’s Scott Kleeb’s TV ad that will be running in Lincoln, Omaha and
the tri cities starting tomorrow. Thanks to the NDP for linking to them.

Next up Tony..

And then we have our new Chickenhawk award winner Tony Raimondo with his new
and improved ad…

Nice suit, red tie… and customary right wing Bush supporter Flag lapel
pin like all good GOP war supporters.

Wow, strong message, all patriotic and such… right up until you remember this
guy was supporting GWB and all his associated GOP agenda blunders, including the war up until a few months ago.

Sorry Tony using the flag and some fake troops as a prop,
won’t wipe away your own history of supporting the war, and George Bush’s policies.
You STILL look pretty darn Republican to me…

Perhaps someone will be kind enough to tell your little mercenary campaign manager Eric Fought that this ad stinks like a skunk in church.

Mainly for this reason, Tony has no history of serving his country in the Armed Forces
nor has anyone in his family served. Politicians that wrap themselves in the flag
and use troops as props yet never carried a rifle themselves, well veterans call em Chickenhawks…. Pro war for everyone else to go fight and win, well except them and their kids.

I have a few other points about Tony, follow along after the jump..

[More:]

Tony Raimondo and Pete Ricketts have a lot in common, and a few things that
are funny too.

Here’s the scoop.

Back in the election of Nov 2006, Pete Ricketts ran one of the nastiest negative campaigns
ever in Nebraska trying to unseat Ben Nelson.

Pete smoked thru 11 MILLION dollars during that bid, but never really shed his outsider
snake oil salesman image.

One thing he did do as one of his last desperate ad attacks on Ben Nelson was to bring up the fact that Ben Nelson took money and favors from special interests… in the form of donations and rides on a companies corporate jet… All coming from Behlen Manufacturing.
Yep, that would be Tony Raimondo, while the donations and plane rides were legal, they did make Ben look bad, just not bad enough to let Petey win.

OK, fast forward to 2007 and Chuck Hagel is retiring form the Senate, Tony see’s an opening for himself to run, and he announces his plan to run as a GOP candidate.

AND…. guess who still is a power player in the Nebraska GOP… you guessed it Pete Ricketts. Who probably still has a bad taste in his mouth about losing that election
and probably isn’t a big fan of Tony Raimondo since he was bankrolling Ben Nelson in 2006.

The NE GOP leadership quickly pulls the rug out from under Tony’s bid for the Senate as a Republican, and his whole campaign effort dissapears faster than ice cream on a hot summer day.

But Ben Nelson and others in the NDP nudged him to run as a Democrat instead, mainly for the reason that he will spend his own money and raise the visibility for the NE Dem party.

PLUS since he is bankrolling himself, it costs them nothing, in other words he is a cheap date for the NDP. And even if he loses they still get more publicity.

But like Pete Ricketts showed everyone in 2006, money does not always buy peoples votes,
nor their support. I do have to give Tony credit for at least not reaching the level of absurdity that Pete managed to get to in 2006, at least so far.

The funny part of this is, every time Tony runs an ad, he is gonna remind Pete Ricketts of how he lost in 2006, AND Tony seems to be running the same playbook as Pete did back then,
by using money to make up for lack of grassroots support. We will see next month if money
loses again, just as it did with Petey, or not…. stay tuned.