I went to the kickoff announcement of the Dan Osborn for Senate campaign. The event was well attended for something like that, but it wasn’t overflowing. Then again, unless you have a powerful political party with a lot of money behind you, events like these are rarely overflowing.

I’ve been to a lot of these things over the years, but this one was a little different.

You see Dan Osborn is an independent running to replace incumbent Senator Deb Fisher. As Aaron Sanderford with the Nebraska Examiner put it, he is neither helped nor hindered by a political party. 

This was different because — with a few exceptions — I didn’t see the usual suspects there. You know, the people that show up at every kickoff campaign. The political loyalists who hold up signs and cheer and clap at the right time with every talking point the candidate makes. 

No, this crowd was different. I spoke with people from both sides of the aisle and when I asked them why they were there, they said that they felt their party had left them and they wanted to hear what an independent had to say. 

Now the speech wasn’t what you would call a stemwinder. It was short on theatrics and showmanship; there was no fire and brimstone demonizing the other side; there was a Nebraska citizen giving the crowd his resume. He is a family man who served in the military, got a job at Kelloggs, rose to the position of union president where he led a strike that saved hundreds of Omaha middle-class jobs. 

A key message in his speech is that he’s a mechanic and when something is broken, he fixes it. It will be a good campaign slogan if he can raise enough money and get an organization behind him to get that message out. That message seemed to resonate with the crowd of independents looking for a different direction in American politics. 

And the working man’s — or mechanic’s — fix-something-that’s-broke message is a message that many in Western Nebraska can relate to. But will that be enough to capture the attention of the die-hard Republican 3rd district? Donald Trump appealed to the working man. Will an actual working man have the same appeal? Maybe some will vote for him just because his last name is Osborn. (No relation to the coach.)

Now I’m not saying he’s going to beat Deb Fisher. I’m not saying Deb Fisher is doing a bad job. And this is not an endorsement. But it’s obvious many people are looking for a different approach. And in an age when the Democrats and Republicans all too often won’t even speak to each other, it was refreshing to see a candidate whose platform is that he will work with both sides. After all, as the union leader who led the strike against Kelloggs, he had to realize Kelloggs’ and the union’s needs in order to settle it.

What we’re doing now isn’t working. As we’ve currently seen, the House of Representatives has a slash-and-burn mentality: take out the speaker with no back up plan. As war in the Middle East is heating up, one man in the Senate is holding up military promotions just because he can.

I do think Dan Osborn deserves serious consideration. Since it appears, the Dems aren’t going to run anyone against Senator Fisher, he might have a shot. Albeit a long shot. It’s going to take a lot of money, volunteers, and luck. In normal times he would have no shot. But we aren’t in normal times. After 2016, I stopped making political predictions. But let’s just say he probably won’t win but if he does, stranger things have happened. It could be fun to watch. 

We cannot be just a one-party state. Maybe with Dan Osborn, an independent running for Senate, we can at least be a one- and a-half-  party state.

Tom Becka is a long time Nebraska broadcaster who for over 30 years has been covering Omaha and Midwest issues on both radio and TV. He has been a guest on numerous national cable and news shows, filled in for nationally syndicated talk radio programs and Talkers Magazine has recognized him as one of the Top 100 talk show hosts in the country 10 times. Never afraid to ruffle some feathers, his ‘Becka’s Beat’ commentaries can be found online on Youtube and other digital platforms.