McCook's political winds blow same direction as ever

Under the headling "Political winds shifting on the prairie?", a Los Angeles Times reporter did a good job defining the unusual political property staked out by Nebraska in general and McCook in particular.

The headliner did well to include the question mark, however, as our political wind has been blowing the unusual course guided by "prairie populism" since the times of William Jennings Bryan and before.

Reporter Noam N. Levey cited Sen. George W. Norris' opposition to World War I, support for Franklin D. Roosevelt and the massive public works project that resulted in rural electrification and the Tennessee Valley Authority as examples of the state's breaking with the traditional conservative stance.

He went on to list Democrat Sen. Ben Nelson's position as one of the most conservative voting records in the Senate, and Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel's opposition to President Bush's policies in the Iraq war as continuations of that defiant tradition.

And, he captured the sad, sober mood that descended on the community when one of our own, Sgt. Randy Matheny, gave his life for his country in that far off war.

But it wouldn't be accurate to say that McCook residents have a unified position on the war, any more than one could say that about the rest of Nebraska or the nation.

Perhaps Mayor Dennis Berry captured it best when he told Levey, "Nebraskans like to win, whether it's on the football field or the battlefield. But there's this feeling of 'where is this going, and will this ever end?'"

The complete story is available at latimes.com, or more specifically at

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-nebraska16apr16,1,2145795...