Nebraska and New Orleans - the most significant races in the first half of 2006

Lots will be said about today's victory for Ray Nagin, but not nearly enough about the incumbent and thus far unelected to Governor Dave Heineman of Nebraska.

Nebraska is one of those flyover states. No one cares about Nebraska. Except of course all the consumer goods manufacturers who test market new products there. That's because bland old boring Nebraska is a much more representative sample of American tastes than somewheres like Massachusetts or Oregon.

A diehard Cornhusker of my acquantance, whose political instincts I trust, once told me that he thought Tom Osborne, the legendary former coach of Nebraska, could merely announce his candidacy for Nebraska governor and then not run any ads or do anything but file the paperwork until one week before the election. "He would win in a landslide," my buddy said. I believed him.

A week or so ago Gov. Heineman, who is only in the office because his predecessor left to become USDA chief, clinched the GOP nomination by defeating Osborne. From what I know of the state's political preferences, I find it hard to imagine Heineman will lose come November. In any event, his defeat of Osborne is a powerful symbol of the current power of the incumbency. And then, tonight, Nagin wins reelection.

Those who feel that November brings with it a blowout for the GOP would do well to mark these recent results. Unless there is a sudden, sharp decline in the economic or social fabric, huge scandal or largescale terrorist/bad actor victory, the GOP is on track to hang on to Congress. Also playing in their factor is their (for now) success in generally positioning themselves as the party of immigration common sense.

What do the Dems have going for them? All the above factors are extremely fluid. But things will have to get much more "sour" for them to prevail.

Why Wes Clark is a good candidate for 2008

Here's a little bonus post. These will become more common as we approach 2008.

I tell any Democrat who would listen to me that if they really want to win in 2008 they would nominate Barack Obama or Wes Clark. Now Obama is an obvious dream choice, but they always flip out when they hear Clark's name. "What the . . .no way. No way Clark could pull it off."

It's a microcosmic example of what's wrong with the Dems as a whole. So few of them see the strengths that Clark brings to the table.

The main ones:

He's really their only bona fide war leader, which is so much better and more strategic than running a "war hero" like they did last time. Clark was supreme commander of the NATO force or whatever it was back in 1999. Now it's no Afghanistan, but then again it sure as hell ain't Iraq either. Kosovo was a bullshit war but because no one died (well, no Americans anyway) and no one knew where it was anyway. (If the media ever bothered to take a look at this war, it would probably hurt Clark; the war managed to be waged on bad intelligence, cost us billions, alienate our allies and strengthen the Islamist horde, but whatever, the media never will examine the history of anything, and God knows I'm not because I'm not a neocon blogger)

On top of Kosovo, he has a distinguished and spotless military career. He's a perfectly believable and credible wartime candidate for the Democrats to run, I think really their only one.

Closely related to this is the fact that no one knows anything about Wes Clark. He can reinvent himself freely because no one associates anything with him but a vague feeling of martial skill and leadership.

Wes Clark is from Arkansas, which I've said for years could turn Democrat virtually overnight, especially given a homegrown boy. He's also Catholic, which might mitigate a little of the fallout he would take for adopting a voter-friendly immigration plan.

I really think Clark ultimately would be a much stronger candidate than Obama or Mark Warner, but for various statistical reasons I'm giving them both a little edge over him for now.