Policy and Politics
tfk | October 27, 2006Once upon a time, when our current AG was in the legislature, he took to spelling his name with 2 "l"s to distinguish himself from a more senior legislator with the same name. And now, "Classic" Kline endorsed Morrison:
"By supporting the best candidate for the office, I have done what I hope all Kansans will do on Nov. 7th -- vote for the best person for each office," Phil Kline said.
tfk | October 26, 2006Talking Points Memo's Paul Kiel writes about the Jim Ryun-Mark Foley obfuscation:
Ah well, here's a new way of backing off a lie: "It's probably not the best way to say what he did." That's Jeffrey Black, Rep. Jim Ryun's (R-KS) campaign manager, ahem, clarifying an earlier remark by Ryun that he just had no idea that Mark Foley was his neighbor.
Turns out, of course, he did. And how could he not? Back in May, the two of them held a fundraiser together, during which donors visited both of their houses, which are across the street from one another.
Ryun, TPM readers might remember, has had a…
tfk | October 25, 2006This summer, after his first visit to Iraq in three years overseeing the war effort from his slot on the Armed Services committee, Jim Ryun told the press that "They [soldiers] feel it's very important that they stay the course."
Doesn't Jim Ryun know that "we've never been stay the course"?
More importantly, doesn't he know that most soldiers aren't either? According to a Zogby poll:
The poll, conducted in conjunction with Le Moyne College’s Center for Peace and Global Studies, showed that 29% of the respondents, serving in various branches of the armed forces, said the U.S. should leave…
tfk | October 25, 2006As part of a larger project to provide information about incumbents in tight races, we offer this list of news accounts.
Jon Kyl Rick Renzi J.D. Hayworth John Doolittle Richard Pombo Brian Bilbray Marilyn Musgrave Doug Lamborn Rick O'Donnell Christopher Shays Vernon Buchanan Joe Negron Clay Shaw Bill Sali Peter Roskam Mark Kirk Dennis Hastert Chris Chocola John Hostettler Mike Whalen Jim Ryun Anne Northup Geoff Davis Michael Steele Gil Gutknecht Michele Bachmann Jim Talent Conrad Burns Jon Porter Charlie Bass Mike Ferguson Heather Wilson Peter King John Sweeney Tom Reynolds Randy Kuhl Robin…
tfk | October 25, 2006
The non-partisan organizations of veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan rated Congress. As others have noted, the senate rankings put all of the Democrats above the Republicans, and the same basic pattern seems to hold in the House, at least for the Kansas delegation:
Senator Sam Brownback D
Rep. Dennis Moore A-
Rep. Jerry Moran C
Senator Pat Roberts D
Rep. Jim R. Ryun C+
Rep. Todd Tiahrt C
To see the full list of votes they examined, head over to their website. Bear in mind that Jim Ryun represents Fort Riley and sits on the Armed Services committee. He ought to be thinking of…
tfk | October 24, 2006"If there were one elected position that should be non-partisan," explains The Parsons Sun, "it would be for those who serve on the Kansas State Board of Education." They go on:
Fortunately for the 9th District there are two concerned and capable people running but, more fortunately, one of them is exemplary. Kent Runyan is not just an educator with a highly desirable and broad background. As the senior professor at Pittsburg State University's Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Runyan personally teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses.
Better than that, Runyan has an amazing…
tfk | October 24, 2006Diane passes on the Kansas Equality Coalition-PAC endorsements:
The endorsed candidates are:
District 3 Julie Menghini (D) Pittsburg
District 7 Richard Proehl (R) Parsons
District 14 Aunesty Janssen (D) Olathe
District 15 Heather Cessna ( D) Olathe
District 16 Gene Rardin (D) Overland Park
District 17 Stephanie Sharp (R) Lenexa
District 19 Thomas C. (Tim) Owens (R) Overland Park
District 20 Kevin Yoder (R) Overland Park
District 22 Sue Storm (D) Overland Park
District 23 Milack Talia ( D) Merriam
District 24 Ed O'Malley (R) Roeland Park
District 25 Terrie Huntington (R) Mission Hills
District…
tfk | October 24, 2006In new ads, Phill Kline hired an actor to impersonate his opponent. The actor reads some statements that Morrison may or may not have made 15 years ago. Court cases about the incident resolved in a dismissal and a mutual agreement to drop the case. In other words, there's no good evidence that Morrison actually did anything wrong.
This ad is unlikely to hurt Morrison, but it is definitely turning off Kline's supporters. Conservative radio host Steve Forman says:
taking the low road isn't doing Phill any good. And from what I hear from the people I go to church with, he is not winning any…
tfk | October 23, 2006With mere weeks before the elections, Governor Sebelius is sitting pretty. SurveyUSA released its poll of approval for all 50 governors, and Sebelius is the 14th most popular. For what it's worth, the allegedly resurgent Aaahnahld is the 38th.
Republican approval of Governor Sebelius seems to have leveled out at 52%, for 6% net approval. Independent voters have leveled out at around 56% approval (interestingly, the number of independents inexplicably dropped from around 30% to around 19%, a shift that happened somewhere between April and May). Only 19% of Democrats disapprove.…
tfk | October 23, 2006Back in May, Jim Ryun, Mark Foley and a couple of their neighbors hosted a block party. As you see, entrance to each party cost $1,000, and the gang of Republican House members served various tasty beverages.
Back when Mark Foley and his predilection for young Congressional pages became known, Jim Ryun was asked what he knew about his neighbor. "I've met him, but I don't spend any time with him," he told the Capital Journal.
Confronted with abundant reports about the D Street Block Party that Ryun and Foley, along with 3 other Republican House members, had thrown last May, Ryun claimed the…
tfk | October 23, 2006
Can you trust this man?
Ten days ago, we reported on Jim Ryun's claim that he didn't know Mark "booked for pages" Foley, even though Foley lived across the street and the two had thrown a block party together. Ryun claimed the parties were totally independent, a claim easily disproven by the single invitation they sent out. Our calls to Ryun's office seeking clarification went unanswered.
But he can't ignore everyone, and now Ryun's story on Foley changes:
Worried about winning a sixth term in Congress, U.S. Rep. Jim Ryun said this month he didn't know until recently that he lived across…
tfk | October 23, 2006Barron's thinks Republicans will retain their majority in the House:
Our analysis -- based on a race-by-race examination of campaign-finance data -- suggests that the GOP will hang on to both chambers, at least nominally.
We studied every single race -- all 435 House seats and 33 in the Senate -- and based our predictions about the outcome in almost every race on which candidate had the largest campaign war chest, a sign of superior grass-roots support. We ignore the polls.
This methodology is good only for fertilizer. The assumption that the size of a warchest correlates with grassroots…
tfk | October 22, 2006I haven't really been writing about the Moore-Ahner race in the 3rd District. Moore will win with his largest margin ever, and Ahner is tragically underqualified to be in Congress. He seems to think a photograph of him shaking hands with Bob Dole and the fact his name sounds a little bit like a positive personal quality are enough to justify a run for Congress (which is why all his ads and campaign signs spell his name "aHner").
Given the way that Republicans have run up a massive national deficit, mired themselves in bribery scandals, underaged sex scandals, and have set the Congress on a…
tfk | October 22, 2006Jack Wempe, who opposes creationist Board member Ken Willard, gets two endorsements from Republicans. Donna Viola, who attempted to unseat Willard in the primary, says that Wempe "truly cares about educating our kids in this state," and that this is not sour grapes. "What the current majority of our State BOE has done and is continuing to do has undermined the intelligence of our kids in this state!"
Sue Greenleaf, a party-line Republican voter, also writes to endorse Wempe.
There was a time that I would have never considered [endorsing a Democrat] and would consider anyone who did a…
tfk | October 21, 2006Salon says that Seldom Seen Smith from The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey is Abbey's "most legendary character." That sentence is hardly the point of a story about the original monkey wrencher, so it's a little silly to jump on it. But anyone who's read Abbey's ouvre knows that "Cactus Ed" Abbey is the most legendary character he ever created. Ed the drunk, the womanizer, the prickly outsider. The guy who was un-PC before PC existed. The guy whose friends hid his body out in the western desert, where it still remains, hidden under one of many piles of rocks, watching and waiting for…
tfk | October 20, 2006Former GOP AG Stovall endorses Democrat Paul Morrison:
"There is a time for partisan loyalty. And there is a time to take a principled stand. Now is that time and I stand with Paul Morrison," said Stovall.
She added: "For two decades, Paul has conducted himself and run his office in a dignified and professional manner. He is a no-nonsense, straight arrow kind of law enforcement officer with an inner moral compass that is unquestioned."
This follows the endorsement by another Republican former AG, one who actually had worked for Kline. Add in sinking poll numbers and a rebuke by a victims'…
tfk | October 20, 2006We covered a debate between the candidates for the state house in the 9th district (which includes Iola). Thanks to j.d., we now see that a Republican county vice-chair has endorsed the Democratic candidate, Bill Shirley.
Both candidates are clearly pretty conservative, but that's to be expected. The last time a Democrat represented the entire area was 1913 (two others have represented part of the district when the lines were drawn differently).
The area is a microcosm of Kansas. As the Iola Register observes:
Republicans outnumber Democrats about two to one in the district. Consequently…
tfk | October 19, 2006DemFromCT reads Jonah Goldberg so we don't have to. Goldberg tells us:
We know now that invading Iraq was the wrong decision, but that doesn't vindicate the antiwar crowd.
Indeed, he says "the Iraq war was a mistake by the most obvious criteria: If we had known then what we know now, we would never have gone to war with Iraq in 2003."
The thing is, we did know then what Jonah knows now. And that does vindicate those who opposed the war.
I called my congressmen to oppose authorizing an invasion, and said that there were probably no WMD, certainly none that were any sort of urgent threat. I…
tfk | October 19, 2006Sam Brownback writes in a fundraising email:
"Everything our party has achieved in the past six years is at risk of being lost in just one day."
Alas, 655,000 Iraqis and 2787 coalition soldiers cannot be brought back to life even if Democrats win the House and the Senate.
New Orleans will not be rebuilt or repopulated in a day. People who've given up on even looking for new jobs won't get hired in a day, nor will the millions of people without health insurance sort that out in a day.
The federal scientists whose research on threatened and endangered species has been blocked and underfunded…
tfk | October 19, 2006Kansas is a divided state, at war between red and blue and purple. Even setting aside the battle between K-State and KU, there's a war between conservatives, Democrats, and moderate voters who used to think of themselves as moderates.
While the New York Times can only find time to mention that 6 year-old Nebraskans love Dick Cheney, and couldn't find time to mention that he was in Kansas not to "feel the love," but to shore up a faltering Congressman in Red America, others are seeing a shift in purple Kansas.
The Cook Political Report just moved the Kansas 2nd from "Solid Republican" to "…