Ben Sasse

Well, I get drafted into it partly because I was president of a place called Midland University Lutheran Liberal Arts College in Nebraska.

And we were we had a great team.

I got too much credit as if I was Midas.

But really, I put together a good team and we did a turnaround of 130 year old place.

that was in real financial trouble, and then it was booming.

And so the alumni of Midland, go warriors, ended up kind of drafting me into the Senate race in 2013 when there was gonna be a vacancy in 2014.

Mike Johan's a very successful US Secretary of Agriculture, two-term governor of Nebraska, new senator, surprised people by retiring at the end of his first term, and there wasn't expected to be an open Senate seat in Nebraska.

I wasn't planning to run for anything.

I've never run for anything before in my life.

And I got drafted to run for that, and I thought it'd be kind of fun to live on a campaign bus.

My kids were 12, 10, and 2.

I didn't know that I wanted to be a politician, but I thought it'd be fun to be a candidate for a while.

Nebraska has 93 counties, and we went and pounded it.

We did public events in all 93 counties.

And I don't say that to be self-serving.

I say it to mean that...

Not having intended to be a politician and just having a real conversation with my neighbors.

Nebraska is only two million people It's a lot of area to cover but only two million people and I pretty much got to know everybody So we had a great time as a family on the campaign trail, but I just want to acknowledge I wasn't a very good politician I

I'm way too idealistic about what I believe in America to be a very good dealmaker.

And if I had to do over again, I would be a little more pragmatic realist about some of the dealmaking needs.