It’s 6 p.m., and the rangy figure clad in sportcoat, jeans and boots is creating a stir among the laptop set at The Mill.

For some, it’s a flicker of recognition. 

Others know exactly who this guy is.

Scott Kleeb broke through in Lincoln two years ago, when he captured statewide attention as a young Yale-educated ranch hand seeking western and central Nebraska’s congressional seat.

When Kleeb aired campaign ads on Channel 10-11, riding its signal across much of the 3rd District, he showed up in Lincoln homes, too.

And as attention drained from a runaway Senate race that October, the spotlight moved out west, where a young Republican state senator was locked in a tight battle with this Democratic challenger riding out from the McGinn Ranch.

Suddenly, internal polling on both sides showed the contest had narrowed to a few percentage points in a district that hadn’t elected a Democrat in 48 years.

When President Bush flew from his Texas ranch to Grand Island on the weekend before the 2006 election to douse the fire Kleeb had ignited, the Custer County cowboy was the center of attention, even if he wasn’t there.

Order was swiftly restored —probably more by a barrage of late TV ads targeting Kleeb than by the Republican bounce of a presidential visit — and Adrian Smith ultimately prevailed by 10 percentage points.

So, Mr. Smith goes to Washington.

Kleeb goes home, gets married, starts a family, accepts a position teaching history at Hastings College.

End of story.

Not exactly.

That was then; this is now.

“And we start from there,” Kleeb says.

“We build on that strength.

“We renew the conversation.”

Kleeb, 32, has extended his grasp statewide as a late entry into the Democratic Senate race.

Now, moving beyond the 69 counties of the 3rd District, he’s also bidding for votes in Lincoln and metropolitan Omaha, where 55  percent of the state’s registered Democrats live.

Omaha is a challenge.

“People don’t know me there,” Kleeb acknowledges as he settles in for a cup of coffee after finishing a tour of the student laptoppers who occupy most of the tables and booths.

However, Columbus industrialist Tony Raimondo, his leading opponent, has no claim on Omaha’s votes either.

And so the two Democrats are trolling unfamiliar territory.

Assessing this surprisingly low-profile race, Kleeb believes he starts with an advantage. He’s already well-known in western and central Nebraska, a somewhat familiar face in Lincoln and the established Democrat in the race.

Raimondo had been a lifelong Republican before he switched party registration to seek the Senate seat. But he’s closely tied to Sen. Ben Nelson, the premier Democrat in the state.

“I’m very confident about where we are,” Kleeb tells a couple dozen campaign workers after he leaves the coffee shop.

But, he stresses, there’s much work to do.

The volunteers are crowded into brick-walled campaign space on Ninth Street across from the late P.O. Pears.

Here is where workers will man the phones.

“We need to make a heavy push now,” Kleeb tells them.

“You are the strongest voice in this campaign,” he says. 

“Thanks for coming, guys.

“Has everybody voted?

“Good.  Good,” as heads nod.

*** 

Kleeb is a policy guy.

Eager to plunge into big problems like energy and health care.

But policy must be connected to people, he says.

“The farm bill, energy, health care, all of these have real-life consequences. You need to understand the impact on people’s lives to understand policy.”

Kleeb says he’s already been bringing farmers and ranchers together to develop a conservation plan.

And he’s  studying a health care reform plan devised for Sen. Chuck Hagel by a commission of Nebraska experts appointed by the Republican senator.

“It’s a great place to start,” Kleeb says. 

The plan embraces universal health care coverage, but not a government health care system.  

It proposes reforms to render private insurance and medical care more affordable, with a role for government in helping those who need assistance.

Kleeb describes himself as a moderate, just as he did in mounting a competitive race in what he says is the fifth most conservative congressional district in the country.

“I want to take a good idea, whether it’s Republican or Democratic, and be for it if it’s good for Nebraska and good for the country,” he says.

“If Democrats want to accomplish anything, they have to work with Republicans.”

Kleeb’s speeches tend to be  more inspirational than detailed or wonkish.

More Barack Obama than Hillary Clinton.

Listen up:

“It’s not about me, it’s about us,” he tells his campaign workers  at their evening gathering after he leaves the Haymarket.

“It’s about service, not self.”

Even in conversation, he’s on the same wavelength as Obama.

“There’s an urgency of the moment,” Kleeb says in describing why he chose to risk his political future with an uphill Senate bid just two years after establishing his political credentials.

Uphill because former Gov. Mike Johanns, who recently resigned as U.S. secretary of agriculture to enter the Republican race, appears to be the obstacle at the end of the road for either Kleeb or Raimondo.

“I’m a history teacher,” Kleeb says. “I sense a moment right now.”

A moment when people are anxious for change, ready to reject the status quo, prepared to embrace challenges and work together after “the lost opportunity” of George W. Bush.

That means getting down to business and doing something about energy, the environment, the economy and education, Kleeb says.

Education, he says, is “the silver bullet” that unlocks the future.

Energy provides an example of the interconnections the country and its leaders need to understand and embrace, he says.

Decisions about oil and gas exploration, clean coal, development of renewable energy and green-collar jobs, and dependence on oil from the Middle East, affect the economy and the environment and national security and international relations and Iran, Kleeb says.

And what about Iraq, a campaign worker asks.

“Gen. (David) Petraeus is right.  There is no military solution (and) there is no U.S. solution.

“We need diplomatic, political and economic benchmarks (and) we need to begin to draw our forces down.”

It’s been a long and eventful day.

The Soviet Union collapsed in Kleeb’s classroom at Hastings College earlier in the day.

That signals his history class is winding down with the end of the Cold War.

Final student independent research papers are coming due.

Kleeb has cleared summer and fall from teaching duties so he can campaign, assuming he wins the Democratic nomination May 13.

As election day approaches, the differences with Raimondo on issues remain largely marginal and scarce.

One that’s clear-cut is Kleeb’s support for labor legislation giving employees the option of seeking employer recognition of a union without a vote if more than 50 percent of the workers sign cards seeking union representation.

That position won him the State AFL-CIO’s primary election endorsement.

President Bush has been an odd companion on Kleeb’s political journey.

It was the president’s re-election in 2004 that sparked Kleeb’s decision to leave Yale and return to Nebraska to enter the 2006 House race. Kleeb’s congressional bid was prompted by a challenge from John Gaddis, the noted Yale history professor, issued on the day after Bush’s victory.

Two years later, when it appeared Kleeb was closing in on a possible upset win, Bush flew to Nebraska to stand in the way.

Now, it is Bush who has created  the environment for a volatile election year overflowing with legions of new voters and crackling with the electricity of disaffection and change.

“I believe there’s a rare hunger for change in this country that cuts across party lines,” Kleeb says.

Perhaps fertile ground to till.

Reach Don Walton at 473-7248 or at dwalton@journalstar.com.