“One of the biggest mistakes we made was underestimating the size of the task and the sacrifices that would be required,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said last week about the war in Iraq. “’Stuff happens,’ ‘mission accomplished,’ ‘last throes,’ ‘a few dead-enders’ — I’m just more familiar with those statements than anyone else because it grieves me so much that we had not told the American people how tough and difficult this task would be.”
Commentators such as David Broder of the Washington Post have said the same thing, only from Day One of the war. Broder, who remembers the shared sacrifice required during World War II, could not believe that nothing was being asked of the American public other than to keep shopping. And instead of expecting the public to pay a little more to finance the war, the administration cut taxes.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
An earlier blog item raised the question of whether the Democratic Party can have any success wooing evangelicals. Well, a new poll shows that evangelicals are growing dissatisfied with the GOP, the New York Times reported.
The number of Americans who say the GOP is friendly to religion fell 8 percentage points in the past year, to 47 percent from 55 percent, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The drop was even sharper among Catholics and white evangelical Protestants: down 14 percentage points.
But the Democratic Party isn’t viewed any better, so it is probably not going to pick up many converts. Only 26 percent said that the Democratic Party was friendly to religion, down from 29 percent last year.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
In 2003, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius expressed support for allowing undocumented residents the chance to get Kansas driver’s licenses. Then and now, that was a sensible public-safety position, because it would have meant fewer unlicensed, uninsured drivers on Kansas roads. But federal law has since effectively nixed allowing such licenses. Now the question is whether GOP gubernatorial nominee Jim Barnett can use the old issue to paint Sebelius as soft on illegal immigration. By the way, the former proponents of this measure include Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, who said in 2001, “We do have people from outside America who are working hard in America. We need to find a way they can have driver’s licenses and buy car insurance.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Ever wonder why tax-paid spokesmen for the governor or attorney general are quoted making partisan statements in campaign news stories? It’s because under Kansas law, certain public employees of officeholders can be designated as “personal staff” and assigned to campaign-related tasks yet still receive their state employee salaries.
According to the Topeka Capital-Journal, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has 11 such staffers, Attorney General Phill Kline has eight, Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger has nine and Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh has about seven. One lawmaker and the state’s ethics czar suggested it’s been a nonissue, though Eric Carter complained during his GOP primary challenge of Praeger about her staffers’ campaign work. Both Sebelius and Kline have set rules for these staffers that are stricter than state law, but the propriety of any use of tax dollars for electioneering seems worthy of legislative debate. As Sebelius’ GOP challenger, Jim Barnett, told the Capital-Journal, “the law needs to be looked at so there’s no abuse.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
