I just had a long talk with a twenty something staffer at the Jim Esch campaign headquarters. I've volunteered to do some things for the campaign but I'm still trying to puzzle out whether or not he has a chance to actually win Nebraska's second district.
I noticed Jim Esch maybe six months ago and I have no love for Lee "Hollywood" Terry, so I've been waiting to see if they were going to start to move. They have and tonight I spent about an hour on the phone with John Owens-Ream, who handles volunteer coordination.
Esch has taken a pro life stance and this seems genuine; he appears to be the proverbial 'good Catholic boy' and that'll fly well in 60% Catholic Omaha. He doesn't have a nonsensical stand on stem cell research, so I think he is respectful of life, but not some sort of religious zealot.
He defers on the whole 'marriage defense' thing, saying its state's rights rather than federal. This is a dodge, but a wise dodge here in the middle of homophobic Redneckistan.
Omaha is heavily Hispanic in the southeast part of the city and the campaign has made some good contacts during the recent immigration protest marches. I hope they're successful at mobilizing voters in that part of town. How to handle the black community in the north east quarter of the city seemed more murky to me; perhaps a leader there is already making a general Democratic push.
Speaking of general Democratic party pushes, Ben Nelson is apparently up to all sorts of things that will benefit the party here in Nebraska. I need to know more about this, but I'm woefully ignorant at this point.
Esch has made a number of appearances in retirement communities but John couldn't give me a solid answer on social security. I guess its a bit much to ask someone just out of college to worry about and have answers ready about aging; I'll ask Jim about this myself when I get the chance.
Jim has made a number of statements about energy concerns on his web site, http://jimesch.org. I don't know if he has a plan, in fact I don't know if anyone could have a plan given the global warming issues we face, but he is at least interested in the problem and not into maintaining the status quo.
Perhaps most noticeable is that he says he isn't going to take PAC money. The thinking behind this is that no matter what a Democrat raises, Lee Terry raises 2.5x as much and crushes them - their approach is mobilizing constituents, not cash. I very much like this populist approach.
OK, initial report made, and I'll have more to say once I actually meet him and get a chance to grill him on various issues.