Side-by-side, you decide: Dan Osborn gives his reasons you should vote for him for US Senate (2024)

*Editor's note: The Omaha World-Heraldinvited Nebraska candidates for the U.S. Senate and the 2nd Congressional District as well as the Donald Trump and Kamala Harris campaigns to submit guest opinions pieces explaining why voters should support them. We hope reading these pieces, which will run in successive Sundays in print and online, will help you make your decisions. Please vote!

Side-by-side, you decide: Dan Osborn gives his reasons you should vote for him for US Senate (1)

I’m not a typical politician. I’m a mechanic. I servedthis country in the Navy and the Army National Guard, and I haven’t been on a government payroll since. I’ve spent the last two decades working 60-hour weeks in factories, not an executive suite. Unlike my opponent Deb Fischer, I’m not a multi-millionaire.

More than anything, I’m an independent. I’ve frustrated hardliners of both parties throughout this campaign, as they’ve tried to put me in a neat party box— but like most Nebraskans, I don’t fit in one.

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I’m allergic to high deficits. I’m pro-labor. I think we need to secure our border and rebuild our military. I also think the modern Pentagon is one of the most wasteful government bodies in history and should, at the very least, face an audit. I oppose extreme national abortion bans without exceptions and I oppose late-term abortions (except to preserve the life of the mother.) I’m pro-Second Amendment but I don’t think mentally ill people should have access to firearms. So many of our government’s problems come down to corruption from special interest dollars, pure and simple. I think Robin Williams said it best: our politicians should wear NASCAR jackets with patches for their sponsors, so we know who’s telling them how to vote.

This mix of political beliefs is abnormal for a politician, but it’s perfectly normal for a Nebraskan.

I’m not promising that replacing a career politician with an independent mechanic will change everything overnight. After all, we didn’t get here overnight. I do, however, see a real hope that Nebraska can show the rest of America how to break the cycle of two-party dysfunction and corruption in Washington, and put every corrupt politician in both parties on notice.

Independents can bring everyone to the table. I saw this during the Kellogg’s strike, when, as union president, I brought people of both parties together behind our efforts— including politicians from U.S. Rep. Don Bacon to State Sen. Tony Vargas to U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts. Many of the divisions created by the two-party system are artificial, and can be overcome.

And at this point, we literally can’t afford more of the same.

Our national debt was at $33 trillion when I started this campaign. Now it’s at $35 trillion. This is a time bomb and neither party has shown any willingness to move, despite the overwhelming sentiment of their constituents. Our debt is a huge driver of inflation, and it puts the future of the dollar at risk.

Our military, I’m sorry to say, is in decay. We can barely build ships. We could lose a war with China in the Pacific if it broke out today. We can’t secure our southern border, we can’t pass a farm bill on time, Social Security is approaching insolvency, and there’s not much hope that resolution on any of these issues is coming.

We’ve all heard the textbook definition of insanity: trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Sound familiar?

Whoever wins on Election Day, we will most likely repeat yet another chapter of the same old story. The country will split itself 50-50. Both sides will run vicious attack ads painting the other side as the devil. One party will win by a tiny margin, and we’ll face another two years of dysfunction. Then we’ll show up two years from now and do it all again. This is one of the least productive Congresses in American history, and unless something changes there’s no indication that the next one will be different.

Those of us in Nebraska who are tired of this may be surrounded by insanity— but we are not insane. So my humble suggestion is that we try something new.

We owe it to our children. We owe it to our parents. We owe it to ourselves. Americans are some of the most self-sacrificing people on the planet. We put in sixty, seventy hour weeks to give our children the life we believe they deserve. We don’t deserve to have our pockets picked by a government that doesn’t have our best interest at heart, and we definitely don’t deserve the soap opera we see on our TVs every two years.

We deserve honesty.

I’m running a different kind of campaign, offering Nebraskans a clear choice. I’ve held more than 140 publicly advertised campaign events across Nebraska so far. I’ve offered to debate my opponent in Omaha, Lincoln, Grand Island, Norfolk, Columbus, West Point, Scottsbluff, Alliance, Kimball, Chadron, and Crawford; she has refused to debate, period.

But something is happening in this campaign. People from across the political spectrum are coming out of the woodwork to support a fresh approach to politics. People who might otherwise be spewing venom at each other online are showing up at town halls and nodding along together. People who have been cynical about politics for decades are putting my signs in their yard.

People are feeling hope, that maybe, just maybe, we can try something different.

As long as we keep voting for more of the same, nothing will change. We have to try something new.

Side-by-side, you decide: Deb Fischer gives her reasons you should vote for her for U.S. Senate

"Whether you’re raising a family in Omaha, running a small business in Lincoln, or ranching in the sandhills of Cherry County, I’ve kept my promise to never stop fighting for you and your community," U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer writes.

Dan Osborn, an independent, is running for U.S. Senate against Republican U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer.

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