GOP moderates did very well in the big races in last Tuesday’s primary, while conservatives did not. But did that reflect an ideology swing toward the middle, or were the results more about competence?
For example, it was the more wacky conservatives — such as State Board of Education member Connie Morris (see photo) and, to a much lesser degree, secretary of state candidate Kay O’Connor — who lost badly, while the more reasonable seeming ones — such as State BOE member Ken Willard — who tended to advance.
The GOP governor’s race wasn’t much of a measuring stick, as the three top candidates were all pretty conservative. Ken Canfield was the favorite of many religious conservatives but was beat handily by Jim Barnett, who has much more experience in state government.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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26 Comments
The party has taken quite a tilt to the far right. It will take some time and effort to bring the Republican party up right again.The lunatics have taken over the asylum. The moderates may still need to break out the fire hoses to drive them back into their cells. But the next four elections will be the telling moments as to how successful we shall be. The day will come when the Religious Right and Neo-Cons will follow in the path of Hitler’s Nazi party. A reference to a once extreme movement that had to be vanquished by good people.
P.S. My wife said she is going to pay for me to get a C.C. permit, if I keep saying things like the above, I may have a need for one…huh?
Hey writerdog!
Welcome to the club!
https://www.accesskansas.org/app/conceal_carry/
Although I don’t think ou have anything to fear from us fundies.
Hank
How many more times do we have to look at this ugly womans picture?
I would say that the extreme ideology of the rapture right brings in some very incompetent candidates. Morris and O’Connor are typical of who they trot out.
Was the election about ideology or competence?
Yes.
It was about ideology and competence!
After the primary election of last Tuesday, it appears Kansas will have a State Education Board of six moderates and four conservatives. I’m not sure when the new state school board members take office, perhaps January 1st, 2007? Does anybody know?
If so, on New Years eve, December 31st, 2006, we should hear a loud “whoosh” as current Commissioner of Kansas Education, Bob Corkins, exits his plush, excessively high paying state job.
During his expensive tenure, he made a few feeble noises proposing some charter schools to be under his control for which he was wholly unprepared to direct.
So, the best thing that can be said is: “Go, Bob, Go!” (Back to where you came from.)
Looks like my foregoing post about the Kansas Board of Education would have been more appropriate on the next thread, “See Saw tipped back in direction of sanity.”
What has Bob Corkins done that is so bad? The answer is nothing. At least he is trying some new ideas. What can you tell me that the former commissioner did? Nothing. And as far as his pay, look at the pay of all of our administrators across the state. They are all paid well.
Ron Baxter: As far as I know you are correct … Bob Corkins did nothing substantial while in the job. He did begin establishing a bureacracy, so I have been told.
JWink–
If you don’t like Bob Corkins, why do you support the party that put him in power?
Bob Corkins only caused about 25% of the Dept. of Ed. to leave…………………it will take 20 years to build up the expertise it has lost
Silence Dugood: #1 — I consider myself a moderate Republican and fiscal conservative. #2 — I try to support candidates who appear to be best qualified, with the right attitude to do a good job and not self-serving.
Corkins failed on all counts.
Silence, buddy, I won’t be registering Repub any time soon (particularly in AZ, where there are actually Dem and third party candidates on the ballot!). But keep in mind this is Kansas.
If it weren’t mod Repubs like JWink, the wackos would still be in power. . . my hearty thanks, JW!
I wonder what David Awbrey will do now. Maybe he can track down Rick Thames and beg him for a job.
Perhaps David Awbrey could enroll at the University of Kansas. Then run again for K.U. student body president.
“Ideology or Competence?”
When you give a job to the government, all you get is ideology and incompetence.
The only thing that may change after this shift is that the precious image of Kansas may improve some. Imagine the billboard in Times Square now, “Kansas: Now Without Intelligent Design in the Same Substandard Schools.”
Sorry, Rage, gotta part company with you on this one.
JWink is faking moderation. Anybody who’s a Republican committeeman is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
He probably gives money to the party, and that money is used to put people like Corkins and Morris and Bonnie Huy and Brenda Landweird and Susan Wagle and Phill Kline and Shallenberger and all the rest of them.
The only thing I give moderate Republicans is the finger.
doh . . . all the rest of them IN OFFICE.
(Really need an edit feature on this blog . . .)
PM,
Did you graduate from public school?
Well, that’s one approach, Silence. Persuasion is another.
I’m thinking of Jim Jeffords, who was literally singing with John Ashcroft and Trent Lott, until he could finally take no more. As for JW faking moderation, well, there are stands he’s taken that aren’t that moderate, but compared with the conservatives. . .
But you’ve asked some pertinent questions, and I’ll be interested to see his response. I changed my own registration from Dem to unaffiliated in 2000, precisely because of my own dissatisfaction and anger with the Democratic Party. The work-within or jump-ship argument is probably quietly happening on their side, too, ya know.
SD,
I’ve found that on this blog it is better to remain silent on personal details.
Indeed, moderate republicans are still republicans, but moderates are probably the best you can hope for here in Kansas. I’ve talked to jwink and his positions don’t seem so bad for the most part.
I can live with the moderates a lot easier than the rapture right, since that seems to be our only choice.
This election I believe was as much about the losers being dishonest as it was about their incompetence.
Morris ripped off the state. Bacon and especially Willard supported her and barely survived their primaries. O’Connor was twice cited for ethics violations. Christians and Republicans resent dishonesty as much as anyone else.
It’s about incompetent idealogues.
It is the older generation who foster in a child an early and most unnecessary sense of guilt, of sinfulness and of wrongdoing. So much emphasis is laid upon petty little things that are not really wrong, but are annoying to the parent or teacher, that a true sense of wrong (which is the recognition of failure to preserve right relations with the group) gets overlaid and is not recognised for what it is. The many small and petty sins, imposed upon the children by the constant reiteration of “No”, by the use of the word “naughty”, and based largely on parental failure to understand and occupy the child, are of no real moment. If these aspects of the child’s life are rightly handled, then the truly wrong things, the infringements upon the rights of others, . . . the hurting or damaging of others in order to achieve personal gain, will emerge in right perspective and at the right time.