The CQ Politics blog noted the quiet start to Kansas’ Senate race this year between sitting GOP Sen. Pat Roberts and challenger Jim Slattery. The latter has a Web site — on which he says “together we can reclaim our country, we can restore Kansan common sense and independent judgment to the U.S. Senate†— but so far has declined media interviews. Because the former 12-year congressman for northeast Kansas is a “cut above the little-known candidates on whom the Democrats would otherwise have had to rely†in Kansas, CQ Politics has changed its rating of the contest from “Safe Republican†to “Republican Favored.†It explained: “The new rating means that Roberts is still regarded as very likely to win, but that the idea of a possible upset is plausible.â€
Besides Roberts’ incumbency and 1st District familiarity, Slattery has another problem: the nearly $3 million Roberts has in campaign funds, compared with $250,000 so far for the Democrat.
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Term limits, term limits, term limits. Kansas needs a change in Senators, Roberts has become a career politician since going to Washington DC in 1981. He is 71 now, time for him to retire to K-Street.
Besides, I’m still mad at him for delaying the second part of the intelligence report over and over and over and over…………………….
Roberts had his big chance to lead and he blew it. He was perhaps the person best positioned in the Senate to stop the Iraq debacle. Here was a man smart enough to speak about sequestration of carbon, but couldn’t understand the half lifes of bio weapons, nor ask when told of mobile weapons labs on trains, how many miles of track there were in Iraq.
Get rid of him.
While fundraising is always a “problem” in a political campaign, I’d say raising $250,ooo in ten days isn’t too bad a record. But Romney and Juliani have recently proven that wads and wads of money don’t always buy campaign victory. Juliani spent $50 mil for one delegate as I recall.
Roberts is going to be burdened by the scars left by the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld Admin., the 6 years of domination by the Republicans of both chambers of Congress plus the White House, and the last 40 years of living away from Kansas, and being infected by Congressional partisan politics. I think Roberts will have to expect to outspend Slattery 4-1 just to have a shot at distracting voters from his record sufficiently to have a chance for re-election.
He has my vote.
This is where voting could make the biggest difference at the federal level — get rid of incumbents in Congress! Roberts has walked lock-step with bushco for over seven years. There could be nothing better for Kansas and for America then to UNelect him!
I guess the democrat in the race (which one is it now?)is doing so well thanks to those famous sebelius down ballot coat tails? The great skills for grooming candidates she has developed? The pipeline of democratic talent she has developed over the last six years? The fundraising for someone other than herself? Those are the reasons the kansas democrats are doing so well against ol’ rubber stamp?
yeah. I thought so.
Just out of curiosity, Kgrrl, what did you think of the Republicans Graves and Hayden?
I like the sound of the “Senior Senator from Kansas.”
Other states like that sound too. Term limits are for sore losers.
Just think, if there were term limits, there would be no Ted Kennedy, no Boxer, no Leahy, no etc., etc.
Be careful what you wish for…
Linda I agree with you – get rid of all incumbents. You go first.
“Term limits are for sore losers.”
Then why did the Republicans run, in part, on term limits in 1994?
Sore losers?
Roberts will win by 20 pts. Count on it.
The problem with living on the blogs is after a while, you start to confuse them with reality. I liken it to myself back in the seventies when I was a big partyer. Everyone I hung with were big partyers too. Pretty soon I thought the whole world was partyers. What a shock when I left that life and discovered that the whole world didn’t think and act like I did.
The same is true with the Bush administration and the war. They are not nearly as unpopular as you people believe them to be. You all have been drinking koolaid from the same pitcher for so long that you really believe the whole world buys into your left wing lunacy and lies.
Oh I’m sure that the republicans could screw up a free lunch and still lose big in this election, but Roberts will have no trouble fending off “K Street Jim”whose been gone from Kansas longer than he was a Congressman. Hell, most Kansans outside of the 2nd district only know of “K- street Jim as the guy who lost big to Graves in 94 and left the State for the big bucks of a Washington lobbyist. I wonder what Howard Dean and company had to promise him to get him to come back here and run.