Congratulations to Omaha Steve, winner of the Steve Dawes award, the “Steve,†during the first year of its awardment!
The “Steve†was created to honor the primitive who most made an ass of himself the past year; all primitives all the time make asses of themselves, and so it demands an awesome effort to come out on top, but apparently this year the big guy did it without any serious competition at all.
It’s incredible. The big guy even outdid Atman.
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One’s referring of course to the big guy’s campaign for the Bellevue (Nebraska) city council this past spring.
The big guy’s run for public office before--way back when he was a young ‘un seeking a seat on the Omaha Council during the early 1980s, coming in 18th out of 21 candidates, or something like that, in the primary.
One has no idea how that long-ago campaign was carried on, but imagine the big guy’s message even back then was “I’m Steve Dawes. Send me money. Vote for me.†Which of course imparted no information giving one a good reason to vote for the even-then big guy, or any illumination whatsoever about what he proposed to do for the people of Omaha.
Perhaps he thought--as he still thinks--simply being Steve Dawes is “enough†to merit election.
In between then and now, the big guy’s run for vice-president of his public employees’ labor union, with the same results, not even making the final cut.
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In late summer 2011, the big guy had a secret; it was such a good secret he felt compelled to blab it all over Skins’s island, to his fellow primitives. Having given up on his labor union, he was going to run for public office. But it was a secret; he couldn’t tell which office he was seeking.
The primitives got all agog and excited. franksolich suddenly got queasy in the stomach.
The big guy and franksolich are fellow Nebraskans; born-and-raised Nebraskans. Since there’s so few of us lost in the otherwise homogeneous United States, we try to watch out for each other. And since there’s so many stupid stereotypes about Nebraska and Nebraskans, we try not to make ourselves look bad by conforming to those malicious attributional biases.
Omaha Steve in the past had been very good at reinforcing such malignant perceptions of Nebraskans.
It did not matter that the big guy was on one side of the political aisle, and franksolich the other.
What mattered above all was that Nebraskans
must look out for each other, trust each other.
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So, when the big guy announced he was going to run for a yet-unidentified office, franksolich advised and counseled him that if he wished to succeed, he should then and there immediately leave Skins’s island without so much as a farewell, slipping away under the cover of darkness so no one would notice his absence.
Despite what the big guy and his fellow primitives think, democraticunderground is
not a conventionally respectable message board; it’s where the professional Democrats and liberals cram their crazies, so as to keep them out of the public eye.
To be a political candidate, and a primitive, is a kiss of death for that candidacy.
As of last autumn, there was still time enough for the big guy to fade away from Skins’s island and never be connected with it, no one--especially one’s political opponents--drawing an association between the primitive Omaha Steve and the real-life candidate Steve Dawes.
Well, the big guy paid no attention to franksolich.
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The big guy later in autumn finally got around to admitting he was going to be a candidate for a seat on the Bellevue, Nebraska, city council.
In case one doesn’t know this, Bellevue, the third-largest city in Nebraska, is a bedroom suburb of Omaha, and occupied predominately by active and retired military personnel. There’s some tiny patches of very light blue in Bellevue, but on the whole, Bellevue is a vigorously red city.
Which does not harbor well for most Democrats, much less primitives.
Since Omaha Steve was stubbornly bound-and-determined to run for the seat, franksolich stepped up to the plate and offered to be his campaign manager. franksolich had no interest at all in having a primitive win that seat, but franksolich had much interest in helping a fellow Nebraskan not make an ass of himself, and by extension, making the rest of we Nebraskans look like asses.
Well, the big guy paid no attention to franksolich.
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What was peculiar about this was that the big guy had attended a campaign management seminar hosted by the Democrats of Sarpy County (wherein Bellevue is located), and upon boasting that he was a primitive on Skins’s island, the professional Democrats blanched, and suggested that wasn’t such a good idea; that he should immediately quit hanging around with the primitives, because it ruined any chance he‘d been seen as a reputable candidate.
Well, the big guy paid no attention to the professional Democrats.
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Throughout autumn and winter, the big guy continued to hang around Skins’s island, with nary a care in the world, chalking up all sorts of comments that would be useful fodder for his political opponents if he in fact turned out to be a candidate who had a chance.
Early in this year, the big guy finally started launching a campaign web-site--one says “start†rather than “put up†because it was slow going, at first and for the longest time one single page--a page soliciting campaign donations.
Decent and civilized people, upon seeing that, thought “what the fu---dge?†because it was simply a page asking for money, with nary a word about what one could expect in return for one’s cash.
One is
sure that the professional Democrats had advised and counseled the big guy that when one seeks money, one must first have something to “sellâ€--a product, a service, an idea, or in the case of political campaigns, pledges or promises to do this or that on behalf of the people.
Otherwise, it’s something like this:
Salesman: Give me money.
Person With Money: What for?
Salesman: You’ll find out later; just give me money, and right now.
Person With Money: But what if what you give me for my money, I don’t want?
Salesman: Don’t worry; you’ll want it. Give me money.
Person With Money: How do you know I’ll want it?
Salesman: You’ll want it. Give me money.
Person With Money: Really now, I might be paying for something I don’t want.
Salesman: You’ll want it. Give me money.
Person With Money: How do I know it’s worth the money I’ll give for it?
Salesman: It’s worth the money. Give me money.
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While the world impatiently waited for the big guy to reveal what he was selling, friends of his got concerned about this one-page web-site, and intervened on his behalf, putting up a website that simply and clearly expressed his message.
The site,
www.electstevedawes.com, no longer exists, and I dunno if anybody kept files of it, but anyway, it was the big guy’s stance on the burning issues of the day, in his own words. It was wholly Omaha Steve, and wholly the words of Omaha Steve, no extraneous matter.
Despite the noble motives of the friends of the big guy, the primitives, led by the pie-and-jam primitive, waxed indignant at the matter:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/125124194http://www.conservativecave.com/index.php/topic,70733.0One was confused by the agitation of the primitives, because the site was well-put together, eminently readable, and accurately represented the big guy’s views. And most of all, it was certainly more aesthetic than his own official site as it gradually evolved:
http://www.stevedawes2012.com/One has no idea who the friends of the big guy were, or are, but they did one Hell of a great bang-up job promoting his candidacy. And one remains mystified as to why it upset the primitives, especially the pie-and-jam primitive, so much. It was flawless.
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This second site promoting his candidacy apparently got inside the big guy’s head, after which he made one catastrophic mis-step after another. He completed his own website. He paid good money to insert a campaign flyer in the
Omaha World-Herald, held a fund-raiser, and ordered yard-signs.
However, his own site was not near the high class and quality of the one put out by his friends--in fact, it was rather clunky. The flyer was in the newspaper too far in advance of the primary, meaning those who paid attention to it, had forgotten it by May 13, 2012. The fund-raiser, which featured mini-tacos such as one might find in convenience stores, was a bust.
Omaha Steve, counting on the illusion that the owner of a labor-union-organized Democrat printing firm would be sympathetic to his cause, hired the company for the yard-signs, but as he’d been rather, uh, slow in paying for the newspaper flyers, the “hundreds†of yard-signs never materialized.
Even labor-union-organized Democrat companies wish to be paid sooner or later; after all, one can‘t run a business on sentiment alone.
The big guy’s final mistake was his trying to “define†the issues of interest to the voters, rather than letting the voters tell him what was important to them, and responding accordingly. As it turned out, while the candidate’s perception that who provided natural gas to Bellevue was an important issue, to the voters it didn’t mean a bucket of warm beer.
He never did get around to discussing what the voters thought was important.
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As it turned out, the big guy ran third in a four-way race, losing to the establishment Republican incumbent and a tea party Republican challenger (the incumbent won by a narrow margin in November).
Congratulations, big guy--maybe next time you should listen to people who want to help you.
But at least "thanks" for the entertainment.
