Past presidential hopefuls have spent large amounts of time and energy targeting demographics such as families and specific minorities. As Mary Sanchez of the Kansas City Star points out, however, candidates should take notice of single women, who account for more than a quarter of potential voters.
A study by Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner Research predicted that unmarried “women may play the same role for Democrats in 2008 that white evangelicals played for George Bush and the Republicans in 2004.â€
The key to these women’s hearts would be promises to lighten their financial load in a real way. Single women often bear the same collection of bills and financial concerns as married couples, yet with just one income and fewer options.
Sanchez writes, “As anyone can attest who has ever watched a bargain-seeking woman plow through a sale rack, women will go to great lengths if they know the effort will bring value to their lives. Candidates who convince women their platforms are worth the effort just might earn a valuable token of an unmarried woman’s love: her vote.â€
State utility regulators made the correct ruling last week in approving Westar Energy’s proposal to produce wind power but denying its request to add 1 percent to its rate of return. Kansas needs to take advantage of its wind energy potential, but Westar stockholders don’t need to make additional profit.
Westar was wise in deciding to proceed with the first phase of its project, and it also should do the second phase. Westar’s stockholders will still make money, and our state and nation will benefit from harnessing the wind.
On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal that what millions of Americans simply want is a reasonable person for president.
“We are grown-ups, we know our country needs greatness, but we do not expect it and will settle at the moment for good,†she wrote. “We just want a reasonable person. We would like a candidate who does not appear to be obviously insane. We’d like knowledge, judgment, a prudent understanding of the world and of the ways and histories of the men and women in it.â€
Noonan’s reasonable list included Democrats Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson, and Republicans Mitt Romney, John McCain, Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson.
Check out Richard’s cartoon year in review. Topics include gas prices, Holcomb, Paul Morrison, Carlos Mayans, gambling and much more.
When someone recently suggested in Opinion Line that retired KBI Director Larry Welch be named the state’s new attorney general, we checked to make sure that he had gone to law school (University of Kansas, class of 1961). Turns out, though, that we need not have bothered: Remarkably, neither the state’s constitution nor state law says the attorney general must be an attorney. Fortunately, the governor thinks a law degree and legal credentials are essential to the job. “That will be a key requirement the governor has while searching for the right person who can restore faith and integrity in the office of attorney general,†Nicole Corcoran, spokeswoman for Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, told Harris News Service.
