Lexington, Neb.
It was a little disconcerting when Ben Sasse, the man most likely to be Nebraska’s next senator, dropped down and did 60 push-ups. There was almost no warning this was about to happen, and it happened on board the campaign’s RV, aka “The Benebago,” cruising down a lonely road in the western part of the state. One of his campaign staffers joined him in the effort, though with four other people on board, there wasn’t much room for one person to hit the deck, let alone two. Lest anyone think this strange, Sasse’s loyal campaign strategist and push-up partner cracks wise: “We decided it would be awkward if one of us did push-ups, but if two people do it, we’ve created a subculture.”
The truth is that it’s hard to stay in shape in the middle of a political campaign, with the long hours and omnipresent fast food. As for Sasse’s campaign style, well, the push-ups are all part of the plan. Sasse’s Democratic opponent, Dave Domina, is arguably the most prominent trial lawyer in the state and worth somewhere between $20 million and $82 million according to his financial disclosure forms. Everywhere Sasse goes, he promises voters, “We may be outspent, but we will not be outworked.”
Sasse isn’t kidding. He’s vowed to be the only guy in Nebraska history (as far as the campaign can tell) to stump in all 93 counties in a general election. If you’re familiar with Nebraska, what this means for campaign logistics is something between a slog and a waking nightmare. The Benebago hits a motel around 11 that night and is on the road again at 5:30 a.m. so Sasse can gladhand employees punching in at dawn at a Cabela’s distribution center. It only gets more hectic from there. Eleven-and-a-half hours of drive time that day, not counting the campaign stops—a radio interview, two high school football games, a trip to a state park, and several visits to places that can’t be found on Google Maps. Sasse’s RV is chasing down potential voters in counties larger than Rhode Island with populations of just over 1,000.
Sasse’s high-energy strategy appears to be working. A poll that came out September 2 has him up 26 points over Domina, but he’s not taking anything for granted. Last fall, Sasse had 3 percent name ID in the state. His primary opponent, Shane Osborn, had the backing and resources of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. The Omaha World-Herald endorsed Sid Dinsdale, a wealthy businessman. Sasse didn’t run a single negative ad despite being pummeled by his opponents. And then he stunned every observer in the country by capturing 49 percent of the vote in a three-way race, besting Dinsdale by 27 points and winning the vote in 92 of 93 counties.
Sasse didn’t come from nowhere. He’s a two-time Bush appointee, notably a former assistant secretary of health and human services. His health policy knowledge is encyclopedic, and he’s one of the foremost experts on Obamacare. He worked for Boston Consulting Group and has successfully dabbled in private equity. He attended Harvard, Oxford, and Yale. He taught politics at the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs. In 2009, at age 37, he became president of Midland University in his hometown of Fremont, Nebraska. The college was on the verge of bankruptcy, and in a few years Sasse reformed tenure, doubled enrollment, and turned it into the fastest-growing college in the Midwest.
Sasse has considerable gifts, to be sure. But it wasn’t his résumé that stunned the political establishment. It was his grit. His work ethic is not in doubt, and his time management strategies are legendary. (Typical email: “Can I call you? I have some time between 11:47 and 11:54.”) Fortunately, Sasse is far from humorless about all this. The Benebago is adorned with tchotchkes from a year’s worth of Nebraska adventures—shotgun shell Christmas lights, a stuffed pheasant on the dash, a Photoshopped poster of Sasse as Cousin Eddie from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. The campaign staffers in tow seem to tolerate Sasse’s mildly insane ideas about campaigning because they like being around him.
Last year, at the weekly Fremont Area Chamber of Commerce mixer just before he declared his candidacy, Sasse was conspicuously ambivalent about selling himself to strangers. He’s a smart guy, and his head wanted to outrun his tongue, resulting in a car crash of dependent clauses. A year later, outside the high school football game in Valentine, Nebraska—Go Badgers!—Sasse is a well-oiled campaign machine, enthusiastically greeting voters. He loves to campaign at football games. As a Nebraska boy, he lives for the sport—he even quarterbacked the American football team at Oxford, where he ran a playbook based on legendary Cornhusker coach Tom Osborne’s option offense. As a political candidate with a bottomless appetite for McKinsey and Co. studies, he likes the maximal efficiency of greeting everyone showing up for the game as they’re funneled through a gate.
“Hi, I’m Ben Sasse, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate. . . . Hi, I’m Ben Sasse, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate. . . . Hi, I’m . . .” Not even the occasional snarky comment from a Democrat throws him off his game. “Hey, I want your vote, too!” he shoots back. In his acceptance speech after his primary victory, Sasse quoted Jack Kemp: “We may not get every vote. But we’ll speak to every heart, and we will seek to represent the entire American family.” He greets voters as if he believes this. At least one of his staffers quips that he’s a cross between Jack Kemp and an aggressive panhandler. In any event, the sun is setting on the plains, you can hear the collective hopes and dreams of a small town after every dropped screen pass, and out in front of the stadium there’s a guy shaking hands who’s probably going to be the next Nebraska senator because the other guys didn’t work nearly as hard at listening to their concerns. When the high school band strikes up “Don’t Stop Believin’,” it’s enough to make Norman Rockwell cringe.
And yet, this is not exactly the best moment for a guy like Sasse to capitalize on energy or optimism. To paraphrase Barack Obama’s last campaign slogan, Detroit is bankrupt, and the guys Osama thought were too radical for al Qaeda are beheading American journalists on YouTube. The fact that current events seem discordant with Sasse’s campaign message is a sign of how bad things really are.
Here’s Sasse at a town hall in Lexington, Nebraska: “I wanna fight for what I call a humble politics—a Washington that does fewer things, but does the more important things, more aggressively, more transparently,
more urgently, with less screaming.” He sets a low bar for what he can and should do as a senator. “I have no reticence at all in admitting that I don’t have the answers for anything, because I don’t think the vast majority of things can be solved in Washington, so I punt most all the hard questions back to the [state government].”
It’s all very Nebraska nice, but the problem is that the federal government is already punting its problems back to the states. In Lexington, people want to talk about immigration. And immigration some more. “What about the illegal immigration, Ben?” is actually a sigh in the form of a question. The people of Lexington have good reason to be upset. Last month the federal government dropped off 11 Central American kids in the rural Lexington school district without warning. The community is not exactly happy about shouldering what people quite justly see as an avoidable burden.
Sasse’s responses are comparatively measured. “One of the things that I find so interesting is that the national media ask questions for the purpose of dividing things,” he says. “Either there’s this one perfect comprehensive solution that will solve everything, or you’re against certain kinds of people.” He’s got his talking points on border security, and he rightly blames the president for not sending the message to Central America that our borders are not open to unaccompanied children. But there is just no easy answer for what he as a single senator can do about the problem.
Instead, Sasse makes a compelling argument that Washington hasn’t even been having the necessary conversation with voters. People rolled their eyes when Sasse, a Bushie and college professor, was anointed the Tea Party outsider candidate, but he has earned the moniker in perhaps the most meaningful sense. His stump appearances invariably turn into mini-lectures on constitutional principles, such as the primacy of local communities, civil society, and natural rights.
Back in the RV, he’s more overt about his disgust. Sasse says he’s itching to fight religious liberty battles; he is troubled by the White House’s latest attempt to rewrite and enforce Obamacare’s birth control mandate even after being slapped down by the Supreme Court. He named his 3-year-old son Augustine, and if you want to get into the theological weeds, he’s uncommonly thoughtful about the nature of the conflict between the city of God and the city of man.
But as a matter of practical politics, Sasse’s comments on religious liberty devolve into another civics lesson. “What’s scary at this moment is the willingness of politicians to opportunistically, cravenly try to manipulate public opinion by saying things that just don’t align with what American history has ever been about,” he tells The Weekly Standard. “Republican-Democrat issues aren’t what motivate me first. What motivates me first is the identity we have as Americans, and we have to celebrate the Constitution, and we have to be having these discussions. And if we don’t have more people who run for office for the purposes of having that civic conversation, we will lose the republic. I don’t think that’s going to happen, because I think people are going to demand more serious leadership that talks about these issues. The next generation does not wake up in the morning understanding American exceptionalism and the fact that natural rights predate government, and government is just a tool to secure those rights. And we’ve got to teach it.”
Again, it’s almost inspiring. But there’s zero evidence that the American people generally are demanding more serious leadership, even if a lot of people are pinning their hopes on Sasse. Beltway cynics will note that civics lessons are not a political agenda. In fairness, Sasse has demonstrated considerable substance as an anti-Obamacare candidate, and he has lots of specific ideas about key policy areas that have been neglected by Republicans, such as education. But for now, he is declining to stake out a position on reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank and other hot topics where there’s a fine line between “a humble politics” and playing coy. The political reality is that he’s up 26 points in the polls. The smart play for now is probably a prevent defense. And if his campaign is any indication of what he’ll be like as a senator, come November, he’s going to be a man with a plan, and willing to work damn hard to achieve it.
Mark Hemingway is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.
