A Sleeper Senate Race Tightens in Nebraska

“At a recent series of campaign stops in small-town Nebraska, Dan Osborn, the little-known labor leader and car mechanic who is running for Senate as an independent, made his pitch to voters in the form of an allegory about the mice who elect cats to represent them,” the New York Times reports.

“As Mr. Osborn tells it, the mice keep voting for different breeds of cats in the hope that one will make good on their promises to make things better, but none ever do. Eventually, the mice realize that their real problem is not which cat they elect — it’s that they keep electing cats in the first place…”

“The populist appeal — in which members of both major political parties are cast as feline villains and Mr. Osborn as one of the preyed-upon rodents — has helped propel his challenge to Senator Deb Fischer, a second-term Republican who until recently had appeared to be on a glide path to re-election. Now, polls show the two in a tightening race that could potentially sway the balance of power in the Senate.”