California Conservative

That’s the great news coming from Sen. Bob Kerrey today. For all intents and purposes, this keeps Chuck Hagel’s seat in Republican hands.

The former governor and U.S. senator from Nebraska cited family and unfinished plans at The New School university in New York, where he is president, in his decision not to run.

But “I got much closer to saying yes than I thought I would,” Kerrey said. “Bringing a voice of moderation in the Senate was very important to me,” Kerrey said. “I’m very worried about the direction of the country. We’re polarized on many issues.”

Kerrey, 64, would have brought Washington connections and fundraising ability to the race to replace Republican Chuck Hagel, who announced in early September he wouldn’t seek re-election.

Now that Kerrey is out, Democrats will likely turn to Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey, and if Fahey passes, Scott Kleeb, who lost the 3rd District Congressional race last year, has said he might jump in. Fahey said Wednesday he’ll take the next few weeks to decide whether to run. Kleeb said he won’t run against Fahey, and isn’t ready to make a decision about a possible Senate bid. No other Democrats have declared.

It’s immaterial which of Kleeb or Fahey runs. The Democrat running in next November’s general election will be facing current Nebraska AG Jon Bruning or former Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns. Both are popular figures in a deep red state.

For months, pundits have generally believed that this race would only be competitive if Bob Kerrey ran. He had the name recognition, experience and fundraising ability to make this a fight. Now that Kerrey decided against running, you can pretty much tuck Nebraska solidly into the ’staying red’ category.

Technorati Tags: Bob Kerrey, Democrats, Mike Johanns, Jon Bruning, Senate, Chuck Hagel, Red State, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 at 5:50 pm and is filed under Election 2008, RNC, Author: Gary Gross. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.