Nebraska has a new lieutenant governor.
Read the full story from the Omaha World-Herald
If you read Rick Sheehy’s biography, one thing may jump out at you. Sheehy used to be a Democrat. That sounds eerily familiar to former Governor Mike Johanns who used to be a Democrat before switching parties. So, is Sheehy a RINO (Republican In Name Only)? In the future, this blog will refer to Lt. Governor Rick Sheehy as Lt. Governor Mike Johanns Jr.
So, why would a life-long Democrat switch parties (only 17 months ago I might add)? He must have a good reason. Let’s find out…
A Catholic who opposes abortion, Sheehy said he switched parties in August 2003 because he began to believe that the party’s values didn’t mesh with his own.
Ok, it sounds like Sheehy was a Pro-Life Democrat for many years. The Democratic Party, especially in Nebraska, has a lot of Pro-Life Catholics (heck, even the College Democrats have a Pro-Life Catholic). I don’t see that as a very legitimate reason for switching parties. So, what’s behind door #2?
He cited the scandals involving former President Clinton and a bitter fight over ambulance service in Lincoln, which he said had partisan overtones.
“I just had some personal issues, and I didn’t believe the Democratic Party was serving me personally,” he said.
Scandals involving President Clinton were a factor in changing parties? You’ve got to be kidding me! Has Sheehy looked at the scandals in the Bush adminstration (WMDs, Abu Gharib, the war in Iraq, you get the picture). Maybe he hasn’t seen the scandals. Quick, someone show him the scandals because he may switch parties again. Unfortunately, Sheehy didn’t mention which specific “scandal” was so repulsive that caused him to switch parties, but I don’t know any “scandal” that President Clinton was involved in that compares to the “scandals” involving Dubya.
Finally, Sheehy said he also switched parties because of a bitter fight over ambulance service in Lincoln. I don’t know what the heck that was about so I won’t comment.
Nebraska Democrats said they believe Sheehy switched parties because he had been thinking about running for Congress in the heavily Republican 3rd District.
“There must have been another reason for him to switch parties. The basis he states really has nothing to do with Republican and Democratic issues,” said Steve Achelpohl, state Democratic chairman.
It looks like Rick Sheehy is just a political opportunist. That’s why from now on we will refer to him as Lt. Governor Mike Johanns Jr.
Maybe the most disturbing quote of the day came from our new Governor Dave Heineman
Heineman said the fact that Sheehy had changed parties didn’t affect his decision. “We’re not a very partisan state, and that wasn’t a factor at all,” the governor said.
We’re not a very partisan state??? What the hell is he talking about? Either the governor is lying or he is an idiot (or maybe both). In any case, that statement made absolutely no sense.
“I don’t know of any ’scandal’ that president Clinton was in that compare to the ’scandals’ involving dubya”
there was a person named Monica Lewinski, maybe you’ve heard of her. Long story short, your “in-scandalable” president cheated on his wife with a white house intern, committed a federal crime, and was impeached.
Maybe Rich Sheehy didn’t want to affiliate himself with someone in such an elevated position who committed such horrible acts, I don’t blame him.
If evading the truth under oath about an affair (deplorable as it may be) when the investiagtion is suposedly about a 20 year old real esate deal is a scandal. Then using information known to be false to try to sell a war to the american public is certainly a scandal. In fact, it could be seen by many as tantamount to murder. Or a war crime. If you want a “conservative” source for this just go to omaha.com and search for “Iraq Niger” and read some stories. In fact, here’s a quotation from one:
Hadley [with the white house], in a rare on-the-record session with reporters, said he had received two memos from the CIA and a phone call from CIA Director George Tenet last October raising objections to an allegation that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium ore from Africa to use in building nuclear weapons.
…the president was told about the objections, but used the fake evidence as the central pillar in his state of the union just before the war anyway.
So, even accepting your Monica thing as a good reason to renounce allegience to the democratic party as good logic, it can be easily proven there are just as good reasons to renounce GOP partyhood. The only logical choice for Seehy then would be to become an Indipendent, like about 1/3 of Nebraskans are.
He didn’t do that though, he joined the party in power in order to get ahead. He proved he had no true ideology convictions or beliefs beyond self-interest.
That’s why over here at The Best Party On Campus, we’re going to call him the glad-handing siccofant oportunist he is: Lt. Governor Mike Johanns Jr.
“I don’t know of any ‘scandal’ that president Clinton was in that compare to the ‘scandals’ involving dubya”
Andy, the key words in that sentence were “that compare to,” meaning that Clinton cheating on his wife is NOT as bad as the scandals Bush and his administration have been involved in. Hello! Torture!
Me being a Catholic i have seen the fleeing from the Democrat party first hand. I am Irish Catholic (giant family’s) there are 7 of us (one not old enough to vote) and where the Democrats would have picked up all of our votes, we picked up 1. My family was torn from Issue to Issue resulting in some not voting and 2 voting for Bush. So I can see how abortion could be a good enough reason for Sheehy’s departure. I also think that the results from the election show that this is a bigger problem than what we have played it off to be. In October my brother came home and announced he became a republican, so not only are they getting our votes but they are slowly turning Democrats into republicans.
Finally, if Sheehy is a good guy or a professional politician, I don’t know. I just wanted to share my first hand knowledge of people that do find abortion a big enough reason to change parties. And if you know me, you know how I stand on that.
Clinton did have a few good scandals but none were worthy of getting huffy about.
Daniel, your parent must have been devistated. When I told my parents I was gay they were cool. It would have broken my parents hearts if they’d found out I changed political parties!
Yeah we had a running joke around the house around christmas time of how everybody puts good things on Christmas cards. Well we thought about putting on all the bad things and at the end including that to top it all off Jason became a Republican. It was pretty rough around the house the night he came out of the proverbial closet. It was so rough we decided to never talk politics again.