Kleeb sells candidacy to Rotary

COLUMBUS -- Democratic Senate candidate Scott Kleeb said voters “sense the moment” has arrived for changing the political climate in Washington, D.C., and taking on the tremendous challenges facing the nation.

“We need a new conversation, a new kind of politics to move the agenda forward,’’ Kleeb told the members of the Noon Rotary Club on Tuesday in Columbus, a week before the state’s primary election.

The former ranch hand from Dunning said the current tone of politics has led to paralysis in Washington while problems such as energy policy, health care, economic recession, stagnant wages, a $9 trillion federal debt and climate change go unattended.

Kleeb said a 2006 conversation with a Hemingford-area rancher summed it up for him.

“The rancher said he’d never voted for a Democrat in his life,’’ said Kleeb, clad in jeans, sport jacket and cowboy boots. But the rancher agreed the country needed to develop a “comprehensive” energy policy, overhaul health care and retool education.

“A new conversation will reveal we have so much more we agree on than we disagree on,’’ said the 32-year-old Kleeb, who now teaches history at Hastings College.

Kleeb said putting aside partisan bickering in Washington will help create a climate for solving the nation’s serious problems.

“Politics has become too much about self, and not enough about service,’’ Kleeb said. “We need to challenge our elected officials, but more than that, we need to challenge ourselves. I want to be a role model for my kids and future generations,’’ he said.

Kleeb and Columbus businessman Tony Raimondo are the leading contenders for the Democratic nomination in Tuesday’s primary election.

The 68-year-old Raimondo has touted his real-world experience in making change happen while steering Behlen Mfg. Co. from a money-losing operation in the mid-1980s to one that tops $220 million in shipments today.

On Tuesday, while urging a change in the political atmosphere in Washington, Kleeb tackled the hot-button issues of ethanol production and illegal immigration during a question and answer session.

The Democratic hopeful was asked about the future of ethanol production with the current controversy over the fuel additive’s impact on spiraling food costs that many consumers are seeing at supermarkets.

President Bush has called for a five-fold increase in ethanol production aimed at moving the nation toward energy independence.

“Corn-based ethanol is part of the short-term solution,’’ Kleeb said Tuesday. “It’s not part of the solution long-term.”

Kleeb said the nation must develop a comprehensive approach to ethanol production that doesn’t interfere with the food chain.

On immigration, Kleeb said the nation is confronting two of its bedrock beliefs: America is a land of laws and a land of immigrants. Both need to be respected, he said.

Kleeb said the first step in dealing with illegal immigration is to secure the country’s borders. “That’s a national security issue. We deal with the border issue first.”

Second, Kleeb said, lawmakers must forge a compromise on a system of fines or penalties for people to earn their way to citizenship. “We shouldn’t be talking about any kind of amnesty.”