Could Kansas primary be the kingmaker or queenmaker?

Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh (in photo) is “still hopeful” that Kansas will hold a presidential primary in 2008, he told The Eagle editorial board Thursday. The Senate has approved the funding, and Thornburgh thinks he can get enough votes in the House. But he said that House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, “is going to make me work for it.”
Thornburgh hasn’t decided yet on the possible date but said that Feb. 12, 2008, might be attractive. Most of the big-population states likely will hold primaries on Feb. 5, but Thornburgh doesn’t think only one candidate from each party will survive, given the political diversity of those states. “I think that next week,” he said, “may, in fact, be the kingmaker. Or queenmaker.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee

3 Comments

  1. JWink
    Posted March 23, 2007 at 8:18 am | Permalink

    Note to our Kansas legislature: just say NO to a presidential primary in Kansas.

    Kansas is a spread out, rather sparsely populated state, difficult for our own minor state wide political candidates to campaign in.

    I don’t think a state-wide presidential primary election in Kansas would have the national impact that Iowa, the traditional mid-America primary election state, gets.

    Bottom-line, this is one dog fight Kansas should stay out of.

  2. Joe Williams
    Posted March 23, 2007 at 8:25 am | Permalink

    I have to agree with JWink. It’s a waste of time and money. Let the delegates go to the conventions.

    Since everybody is uping it to early February, hell even Florida is thinking about uping theirs to January. It’s going to be long and over before Feb. 15th.

    The only concern I have about consolidating the primaries, is that it will force the little guys or 2nd tiers out, when before, at least they had a chance to gain momentum with the primaries of states spread out.

    I guess we will just leave it up to the big boys and big money rackers now. Meaning just two from each party. The rest won’t have a chance.

  3. HardTruth
    Posted March 23, 2007 at 1:23 pm | Permalink

    Agreed. If I were a Party ‘bigwig’ in EITHER party I would see Kansas as irrelevant. The reason: KS will go Republican in November regardless of who the candidates are. Similar with massachusetts – it will go Democratic.

    The states that I would look at are OH, PA, FL, etc. The “purple” ones. THAT is where November will be decided. So, that is where I would look at popular response to the candidates.