Dec 5, 2022
Re-Elect Leirion Gaylor Baird Mayor of Lincoln!
Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird recently announced her intention to seek a second term as mayor. Mayor Gaylor Baird will be running on a record of accomplishment because Lincoln is thriving.
Gaylor Baird launched her re-election campaign by giving a lengthy interview to the Nebraska Examiner. The pertinent excerpts were as follows.
“She credited temporary measures such as masking and the COVID-19 transmission risk dial with helping people navigate an uncertain time. (Lancaster County had the lowest per capita death in Nebraska.)
The mayor shared rankings that show major gains in job growth, wage growth and broadband infrastructure. She mentioned a record number of building permits in 2021.
Lincoln’s violent crime rate is approaching a three-decade low, she said, even as the city has grown by 100,000 people.
She said part of recruiting young talent is being a welcoming place for all Nebraskans, including LGBTQ youths.”
Thanks to the leadership of Mayor Gaylor Baird and the Democratic majority on the City Council, the Lincoln economy is roaring. Currently, Lincoln has an amazingly low unemployment rate of 2%.
Lincoln is ranked number 12 on the Forbes list of best places to retire in 2022. The median home price is 31% below the national average. Lincoln’s capital city also has good air quality and an excellent health care system.
Lincoln is ranked number 3 on the Storage Cafe list of best places for families with children. Housing costs and rental prices are well below the national averages. The public schools are very highly rated, with Lincoln East High School ranking as one of the best in Nebraska.
Despite that impressive progress, two extreme right wing Republicans have thrown their hat in the ring. Former Nebraska football player and talk show radio host Stan Parker has filed for mayor. He doesn’t appear to be a serious candidate.
Leirion’s most formidable opponent is Nebraska State Senator Suzanne Geist. She has been a loyal Ricketts’ lieutenant and has compiled an extreme record in the legislature. When she was asked about what issues in which she differed with Ricketts, Geist couldn’t provide an answer.
Earlier this year in the legislature, Geist voted for tax breaks for the wealthy and the corporations but voted against middle class tax relief. Geist has also pandered to the most extreme elements of the MAGA Republican base by voting for a near total abortion ban and against LGBTQ employment protections.
When she announced for mayor, Geist was asked what she’d do differently than Baird on the issues. All Geist said was that she would talk to experts who know the systems and get them what they need. Apparently, Geist has no platform but blind ambition.
Geist is not only extreme but she is badly out of touch. Even though she grew up in a racially diverse area of Arkansas, Geist has no understanding of the challenges being faced by African Americans. In a 2020 Lincoln Journal Star interview, she said: “They think about fear being a part of their lives all the time. And I didn’t know that.”
In that same interview, Geist said that she didn’t believe the issues of African-Americans can be solved politically and that racism is not something that can be eliminated with the writing of a law. Are you kidding me? Is she even familiar with the Civil Rights Act of 1964? The Voting Rights Act of 1965? Or the Fair Housing Act of 1968? Geist revealed a shocking ignorance in that 2020 interview.
Despite the lack of a rationale to run for mayor, Geist will be generously funded by Pete Ricketts and the Peed family. The Peeds have already given Geist $250,000.00. Ricketts and the Peeds will use that money to falsely trash Lincoln’s good name with deceptive and negative ads. These radical right wingers will falsely besmirch our sterling reputation and depict Lincoln as a dystopian, crime ridden hell scape.
Those ads will be deeply disingenuous since the Lincoln Journal Star reported on October 23 that “reports of violent crime in the city have been largely stagnant for three full decades, even as Lincoln’s population has grown by about 100,000 residents….Lincoln’s violent crime rate — the number of violent crimes reported per 100,000 residents — has actually dropped substantially since the 1990s and early 2000s….By last year, the city’s violent crime rate had been nearly cut in half, down to 372 violent crimes reported per 100,000 residents, according to police data.”
Former Kerrey and Nelson Chief of Staff W. Don Nelson said Gaylor Baird should ask her opponents one question: “What is it I have done over the past four years that you would not have done, and what would you have liked to have done?”
It will be progress versus radicalism in 2023. Why would we want to turn over our city to the extreme MAGA Republicans? They have a reverse Midas effect — everything they touch turns into garbage. We must save our great city from these dangerous radicals by re-electing Mayor Leirion Gaylor-Baird!
