A Team of One

I have finally unearthed the message 2nd-tier challenger for the Republican nomination for governor Dave Nabity thinks will carry him to victory next year. It reads something like this:

"Dave Nabity likes to drive. Dave Nabity likes to drive fast. Dave Nabity wants to cut taxes while driving fast. Vote Dave Nabity for Governor in 2006."

That's pretty accurate, isn't it? Of course, his campaign website also includes some hooey about transforming Nebraska into "the Jewel of the Midwest" (did you think of that one yourself?), but, in the end, it becomes clear that driving fast and cutting taxes are really what this guy is all about.

Here's the man introducing himself in the Sunday Lincoln Journal-Star:

Underdog. That's the role in which Dave Nabity is cast as the opening act of the high-profile 2006 Republican gubernatorial race unfolds.

Just wait until Republican voters have a chance to hear his message of significant tax cuts, aggressive economic development and protection of family values, the Omaha businessman says.

"They won't start paying attention until this winter," Nabity said.

It's hard not to notice a guy who is running a three-year marathon in a Chrysler Crossfire sports car convertible decorated in racing car motif. Team Nabity race car T-shirts and small checkered flags fill boxes in the trunk.

Neither rain nor snow nor Tom Osborne nor a newly minted incumbent Republican governor kept Nabity out, or drove him out, of this race....

"I represent the future," Nabity said Friday over a cup of iced tea at The Mill in Lincoln's Haymarket....

A pledge to reduce property and income taxes immediately separates him from his opponents, Nabity said. "We absolutely have to cut taxes. If we don't fix our tax structure, we are going to implode"....

"I'm the only one committed to these reforms, the only one committed to cut taxes," Nabity said. "I'm the only guy who's going to fight the battle the way it needs to be fought"....

Osborne would not be in position to make and sustain the kind of dramatic changes that are needed with his preference to serve a single four-year term, Nabity said.

Heineman did not demonstrate the kind of cost-cutting that is required when he vetoed "only one-tenth of 1 percent" of the Legislature's state budget package this year, he said.

Nabity said he wants to be able to explore all these issues with Osborne and Heineman in a statewide series of at least six debates before the May primary election.

And in the closing weeks, the 46-year-old financial adviser, jazz band drummer and Porsche driver said he hopes to make some noise.

"I'm going to draft them (follow closely) for about 20 laps, study them, make my move in the last two laps, pass them both and get the checkered flag."

Well...go Speed Racer, go! In the article, Nabity also throws out the idea that taxpayer dollars subsidizing business developments (i.e. Cabela's) would result in a new motor racing complex along I-80 and increased tourism. He doesn't quite get to the how of the state's paying for all this after cutting all those taxes. Then again, Republican voters don't care about the how...that would be too responsbible...they just want to hear "CUT TAXES CUT TAXES CUT TAXES" and Nabity and Heineman, as evidenced by the previous post, know it.

Got to hand it to Nabity, though, for thinking that his collection of Porsches and Convertibles is really going to endear him to the common Nebraska voter. Quick, someone ask this guy how much a jug of milk costs before he speeds away.

Racing cars and cutting taxes - my God, is that how cheap our votes have become? Are we really so easily played? If I believed it for a moment, I'd wave my checkered flag right now and leave this whole darn state to the Nabitys and Heinemans to make more a mess of.

No. Can't believe it. Won't believe it. Not ever. Besides, this race doesn't end on Election Day 2006. We're still warming up.