In the early hours of Saturday morning, Mark Vondrasek was prowling the streets of the Old Market in Omaha, scrawling on the sidewalk with chalk: “Mike McDonnell is a homophobic bigot.” The St. Patrick’s Day Parade would be starting in an hour or two, and the message targeted one of four mayoral candidates who would be participating in it.
I first encountered Vondrasek at the Independence Day parade in Ralston in 2017. He walked the parade trailing after then-freshman Congressman Don Bacon, wearing a rainbow flag and carrying a sign that said, “Bacon Kills.” Bacon later responded on Twitter (now X), “Elected officials should set example for civil dialogue. I appreciate this young man giving me chance to demonstrate.” Along with Bacon’s post was a photo of him and Vondrasek, with Bacon giving a “thumbs up,” and Vondrasek extending his middle finger.
Bacon has since gone on to win reelection four times, beating Democrat candidates Kara Eastman and Tony Vargas as the left flutily struggled to “resist.”
Stunts with sidewalk chalk are nothing new to Vondrasek. KETV ran a story about him and his activism back in 2019 ahead of his plan to run for legislature in LD9. He lost in the primary in 2020, receiving less than 14% of the vote.
Left-wing activists similarly targeted a “back the blue” event in March 2021, vandalizing Memorial Park with chalk ahead of a rally with candidates Kathleen Kauth, Don Rowe, and Suzanne Geist. Rowe would go on to serve on the Omaha City Council in that year, while Kauth would represent District 31 in 2022.
Kauth would clash again with the “resistance” during the debate over her Let Them Grow act in 2023, which placed restrictions on abortion and sex change treatments for children. These included loud protests at the state capitol, where one person brought a severed deer head, as Kauth later recalled. Kauth’s bill passed after narrowly overcoming a filibuster with the help from then-Democrat Mike McDonnell.
Right: Chalk writing against McDonnell that was partially removed to remove slurs.
Ricketts was also the target of some protestors in the Old Market. One woman held a sign calling him a “d*ck tater” [sic]. On the opposite side of the sign were the words “Pete bought his seat.” Ricketts won reelection in 2024 with over 62% of the vote.
Democrats worked the crowd during the parade passing out fliers against Mike McDonnell, attacking his support of Kauth’s Let Them Grow act and claiming that he “did NOT save the Blue Dot.” The fliers also referred to McDonnell repeatedly as “MAGA Mike,” a term ironically also used by some of McDonnell’s supporters.
I talked with some of the parade-goers about the chalk writing on the sidewalk. They were appreciative when it was quickly cleaned off, and some told me that they weren’t even aware that there was a mayor’s race going on in Omaha. If the “resistance” against McDonnell turns out this year like it did for candidates Bacon and Kauth, it may backfire — giving him a name recognition boost ahead of the primary on April 1.
