Political winds shift on the prairie: Deep red Nebraska is at the center of Congress' debate on Iraq

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: Political winds shift on prairie
Staunchly Republican Nebraska finds itself at the center of Congress' debate on the Iraq war.
By Noam N. Levey, Times Staff Writer
April 16, 2007

MCCOOK, NEB. -- In early February, the war in Iraq came home to this small railroad town on the Nebraska prairie where farms begin to give way to high plains.

Seven thousand miles away on a Baghdad street, a bomb exploded beside Army Sgt. Randy J. Matheny's armored vehicle, killing the 20-year-old McCook High School graduate and stunning his small hometown.

"It caused us all to reexamine what we were thinking," said Walt Sehnert, who has run a popular bakery on McCook's main street since 1957. "Those of us who were adamant about the war had to stand back and take a deep breath."

Across Nebraska, there has been a lot of reexamination lately.

Although politicians here still score points by poking fun at vegetarians, this deep red state, which has voted for a Democratic presidential candidate only once since Franklin D. Roosevelt, finds itself playing a central role in the congressional war debate.

Nebraska's two U.S. senators cast the critical votes last month to pass a bill that would force President Bush to start withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

And one — Republican Chuck Hagel — has become one of the war's most fiery critics. Hagel, who was an infantryman in Vietnam, recently suggested Bush could be impeached for defying the will of the American people....(T)he votes by Hagel and Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson seem to resonate in a state of tightknit communities where a soldier's death is felt personally and where a tradition of prairie populism still rewards politicians who speak their minds....

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nebraska16apr16,0,4062401.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. I know this might sound insensitive, but...

It's interesting how one's outlook on a war changes when someone they know gets killed in said war. Kinda sharpens the focus. Takes a lot of the meaning out of the slogans and robust, manly posturing and preening.

[The Magistrate]

2. It Does Not Strike Me As Insensitive, Sir

The abstraction is easy; the concrete difficult.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. Thanks.

In the cases of those Nebraskans, I guess it does take a crisis for people to change. What's sad is that there is no shortage of people who know what all this leads to, and are trying to get them to listen.

I think that the country is slowly, ever slowly regaining a few shards of its sanity. However painful that process might be.

We are in for one whale of a period of national introspection and reflection.

[The Magistrate]

4. Some Things, Sir, People Have To Find Out For Themselves

There really is no help for it.

[TwilightGardener]

5. Excellent article, and very true from my perspective. The war attitude

here is quiet frustration, like it says in the article--not outrage. These are not protesting people, and they tend not to want to buck Chimpy, out of respect for the office more than anything, I think. But the tide is definitely turning, and even though the GOPers in this state seem to hate Hagel with a fiery passion (sadly, including McCollister, his own mentor), I'm willing to bet they recognize deep down that he is right. Kinda neat that this "flyover" state is the political swing state for Chimpy's war, thanks to our Senators--our Congressmen are useless. Thank you for sharing this--K&R!

[DeepModem Mom]

6. Thank you so much for this report from the "prairie." nt