Huskers like us some Bob Kerrey

Nobody saw the Scott Kleeb blowout coming in Nebraska's Democratic U.S. Senate primary.

Republocrat Tony Raimondo, the grain-bin king from Columbus, had the bucks to cover the airwaves with testimonials about what a gosh-darn good boss he was. And if you wanted to send a nice feller to Washington to set 'em up with a mighty fine silo and a couple hundred horse tanks, Raimondo was your man.

And 25 percent of Democratic voters saw it that way.

But 69 percent voted for Kleeb (pronounced KLEB).

NOW, WHY WOULD they go and do that? Vote for the hunky, 32-year-old Ph.D. whiz kid who's only lived full-time in the state since 2005 . . . and who got his undergrad degree from Colorado, for God's sake.

Well, it could be that Democrats didn't trust the party-swapping Raimondo.

But I think it's more that Kleeb -- born in Turkey and raised in Italy by expatriate Nebraskan parents -- was an honest-to-God cowboy until a couple of years ago. Was on the rodeo team at CU. Worked as a hired hand on a relative's ranch in Custer County every summer . . . and for a whole year after graduation before heading off to Yale to get all degreed up.

He's the new Bob Kerrey. And Nebraskans like them some Bob Kerrey.

Nobody's giving Rockin' Bob 2.0 much of a chance against uberdweeb GOP ex-Gov. Mike Johanns -- or Yo-hans to George Bush, who made him Agriculture secretary despite not knowing how to pronounce the man's name. I say they're nuts.

Repeat the mantra: Scott Kleeb is the new Bob Kerrey. And Nebraskans like them some Bob Kerrey.

If Kleeb can run a little more rightward on the social issues while tying Johanns to every colossal screw-up by the Bush Administration and pointing out early and often exactly how the Republicans have governed contrary to the interests of Main Street America and the working man, I think he can win. All he needs is the money to match the big corporate contributions the GOP Escort Service is so good at raking in.

But if Kleeb, a Catholic, wants to win, he has to exhibit the courage of his convictions on the social issues -- if indeed he shares the convictions of his faith on issues like abortion, gay marriage and, yes, a preferential option for the poor and vulnerable. Frankly, the "personally opposed but I don't want to piss off the abortion-loving party zealots" position isn't fooling anybody, as noted in an Omaha World-Herald feature last week:

Rita Paskowitz, a 59-year-old Democrat, said Kleeb talked without saying much. A supporter of abortion rights, Paskowitz didn't like his answer to her question on abortion.

Kleeb told her he personally opposes abortion but accepts the fact that legal abortion is the law of the land.

"I guess the cowboy hat makes me see him riding the fence, not the horse," said Paskowitz, who remained an undecided voter Thursday.

THE FACT IS, people passionately dedicated to vacuuming, poisoning, dicing or skull-puncturing unborn children to death mistrust a candidate the second he says "personally opposed." The quickly added "but" only convinces an apostle of "choice" that the pol is a weasel to boot.

And the waffler loses pro-lifers at "personally opposed" because they know the "but" is coming, and the "but" means he's going to vote in Congress the same as if he thought abortion were a lovely stroll in the park.

My party's fatal flaw is that it champions murder to the detriment of its own political interests. What Democrats, for the most part, refuse to understand is this -- that for decades now, pro-lifers and other social traditionalists have, for the most part, been voting happily against their own economic well-being in order to remain true to some greater truths.

Likewise, for decades now, the Republicans have been exploiting that . . . and then screwing over the masses with impunity because, after all, where are the "values voters" gonna go? To the Party of Lust and Abortion?

What would there be to lose if a Democrat plainly stated "Any solution to a problem that guarantees someone's going to end up dead -- like in abortion -- is no solution to anything. I am in favor of crafting solutions to unwanted pregnancies in which there are no losers"?

What if a Democratic candidate were solidly Democratic -- solidly pro-little guy -- on all the economic and policy issues, but also solidly in favor of crafting solutions where babies don't die? Forthright in decrying the fundamental injustice of a society that deems some must perish to solve others' crises?

To turn the GOP strategy -- the one that invented "Reagan Democrats" -- on its head . . . where, then, would the Dems' abortion lobby go? To the Republicans?

The ranks of the true-believer abortion zealots are thin, much thinner than the ranks of committed pro-lifers. Where most Americans reside would be that gray zone where folks don't necessarily want to repeal Roe v. Wade, but where the idea of abortion draws a solid ewwwwwww -- and where people would like the "choice" free-for-all to be decidedly dialed back.

That gray area is not hostile territory for a pro-life candidate who's "right" on all the other issues.

IF SCOTT KLEEB has the guts -- and foresight -- to realize where his bread is really buttered, he can get back the Reagan Democrats . . . and he can take out the Bush toady Johanns.

"To thine own self be true" ain't just Shakespeare (Hamlet, Act I, Scene iii), it's also good advice.