NE Primary: major homophobe, frontrunner AG Jon Bruning, demolished by GOP dark horse, a billionaire's SuperPac — and a Sara Palin endorsement

County-by-county: Jon Bruning's stunning defeat. Deb Fisher-carried counties are dark red, Bruning counties are light red.

Below: TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts' SuperPac ad trashing Jon Bruning:


In November 2003, Jon Bruning said Massachusetts' Supreme Court ruling against that state's ban on gay marriages was ridiculous. "Does that mean you have to allow a man to marry his pet, or a man to marry his chair?" Bruning said. "I mean, at some point, it needs to stop." [Associated Press, 11/18/03]
     In 2011, Jon Bruning had Nebraska State Senator Mike Gloor introduce legislation punishing HIV+ Nebraskans who sneezed in the direction of a cop with up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine — despite the fact that saliva doesn't transmit HIV.
     In 2012, after state Senator Beau McCoy's bill to kill looming gay rights ordinances in Omaha and Lincoln died in committee, Bruning issued an opinion that LGBT rights ordinances were illegal anyway despite contrary opinions by city attorneys in both Lincoln and Omaha.
     Now Bruning's US Senate ambitions are in ruins, courtesy of a dark horse Unicameral representative from rural Nebraska, Deb Fischer, a last minute SuperPac expenditure of $200,000 paid for by the billionaire Omaha founder of TD Ameritrade, Joe Ricketts and an endorsement of Fischer by Sara Palin. (Paterfamilias Rickets' out gay daughter is an attorney who supports Lambda Legal; his son supported the candidacy of state senator Beau McCoy, who will kill gay rights in Nebraska if it's the last thing he does. The Ricketts family must have some interesting Thanksgiving dinners.)



     Bruning had other problems, notably the candidacy of former AG Don Stenberg (almost as antigay as Bruning himself) and a string of articles in both the Lincoln Journal-Star and the Omaha World-Herald which chronicled Bruning's swift rise to millionaire status while attorney general.
     Deb Fisher will face former Nebraska Governor and Senator Bob Kerrey in the general election.
     Kerrey won in a landslide, as expected, though he didn't get AKSARBENT's vote because he arrogantly refused to answer any of the questions in the League of Women Voter's questionnaire.
     We'll vote for him in the general election because he came out for gay marriage recently. (While doing so, Kerrey instructed a reporter to be sure to mention that Dick Cheney does too.)

Below: Joe Jordan of nebraskawatchdog.org talks to Democratic victor Bob Kerrey about Fischer's win:



     Kerrey is quite funny. Here's how he answered a question from Omaha World-Herald columnist Brad Dickson, a former gag writer for Jay Leno:

Q: If elected, will you be favoring us with “Waltzing Matilda” again? Feel free to respond no comment.
A: Yes, but you'll have to be in the shower to hear it, and there's no chance I'll invite you.

(Actually, Kerrey sang And The Band Played Waltzing Mathilda, a 70s antiwar song, after first being elected to the US Senate in 1988.)

While governor, Kerry, who lost a limb in Vietnam, dated actress Debra Winger when she was filming Terms of Endearment in Lincoln. When a reporter asked him about the romance, Kerrey deadpanned: "She swept me off my foot."