President Bush’s choice of Wichita native Robert Gates as secretary of defense should inject more pragmatism and less neoconservative ideology into his administration. Gates is part of the “realism” foreign policy approach and, unlike Donald Rumsfeld, is viewed as a consensus builder.
With Gates’ nomination, along with the return to influence of former Secretary of State James Baker, it appears as if Bush is starting to listen more to his father and less to Vice President Dick Cheney. I hope so.
Meanwhile, the neocons aren’t retreating. In the current issue of Foreign Policy magazine, American Enterprise Institute fellow Joshua Muravchik wrote a “memo” to neocons, arguing that they need to start setting the stage for Bush bombing Iran. “The global thunder against Bush when he pulls the trigger will be deafening,” Muravchik wrote, adding that “we need to pave the way intellectually now and be prepared to defend the action when it comes.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Nancy Boyda’s upset of Rep. Jim Ryun, R-Topeka, may in part be an unintended consequence of GOP state legislators’ contentious 2002 redistricting map. That was the hurried plan that nearly forced the postponement of the August primary, when then-Attorney General Carla Stovall challenged its separation of Junction City and Ft. Riley. But by also moving part of liberal Lawrence from the 3rd Congressional District to the 2nd, Republicans intended to make Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Lenexa, beatable. Now, he’s still in office. And as of Tuesday, as KC Buzz Blog noted, “we’ve now got two blue districts where we once had just one.” Oops.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Automated campaign phone calls aren’t new. But this past election, the national Republican Party flooded residents in several dozen districts with repeated phone calls, the New York Times reported. Some residents received five calls a day, every day, for a week — all with the same automated, negative message about the Democratic candidate in that district. A few calls were made in the early morning or middle of the night, and some voters received several calls minutes apart, the Times reported. Democratic officials have protested, saying that the calls were tantamount to harassment and were aimed at discouraging people from voting.
One solution: New Hampshire has a law that prohibits automated campaign calls to people on the no-call list (though the GOP still called them but agreed to stop after being contacted by the state’s attorney general).
The GOP also employed a new automated telemarketing ploy that is akin to a push poll. The call asks a question, such as whether you believe that judges who “push homosexual marriage and create new rights like abortion and sodomy” should be controlled, the Times reported. If your answer is “yes,” the automated message then says that you shouldn’t vote for the Democratic candidate.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Social conservatives have had better days at the ballot box than they did Tuesday, losing the abortion ban in South Dakota, the stem-cell research protection measure in Missouri and, for the first time in any state, a constitutional gay marriage ban in Arizona.
Of course, 20 other states already had passed marriage amendments before voters approved them Tuesday in Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin. Michigan voters showed their disapproval of affirmative action in college admission and public employment. Arizona saw two anti-immigration measures pass. Nevada, Colorado and South Dakota chose not to decriminalize some marijuana use.
But minimum-wage hikes passed in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Ohio and Nevada. And on other social issues, voters seemed to be placing the same order for more moderation that they issued Tuesday to the GOP-led Congress.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
If you needed any more evidence that every vote counts, just ask Sedgwick County Commission Chairman Ben Sciortino: He’s trailing District 5 challenger Gwen Welshimer by 36 votes and has to wait until provisional ballots are counted Monday to find out if he still has a job.
In the District 96 Kansas House race, Republican incumbent Willa DeCastro (in photo) appears to have lost to Democrat Terry L. McLachlan by an even narrower margin: 26 votes. I’m guessing both Sciortino and DeCastro personally know enough people who didn’t vote who might have made the difference.
Then there were the Senate races in Virginia and Montana, both of which Democrats won with razor thin margins. Think of that: You could say that Democratic control of the U.S. Senate was decided by fewer Montanans than it takes to fill a high-school gym.
Posted by Dave Knadler
