The task had to be bittersweet, but Hillary Clinton did an outstanding job Tuesday night in Denver of reaching out to her disappointed supporters. In a lengthy speech, she made an upbeat, direct plea for Democrats to rally behind Barack Obama and, most important, defeat Republican nominee-to-be John McCain. “You haven’t worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership,” Clinton said to convention delegates. “No way. No how. No McCain.” And no question that Clinton did her part Tuesday night to try to unify the party after the primary fight. Now, will her delegates — her “sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits,” as she called them — fall in line, or cause a ruckus during tonight’s roll call vote?
We know that Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, pumped gas at an Overland Park convenience store Tuesday because the Kansas City Star caught it on video. Tiahrt was stumping for 3rd Congressional District candidate Nick Jordan, who blamed high gas prices on a partisan Congress that can’t find a solution to our energy crisis.
Barack Obama hasn’t received any bounce yet from picking Joe Biden as his running mate. Gallup Poll tracking from Aug. 23 to 25 “shows 46 percent of national registered voters backing John McCain and 44 percent supporting Obama, not appreciably different from the previous week’s standing for both candidates. This is the first time since Obama clinched the nomination in early June, though, that McCain has held any kind of advantage over Obama in Gallup Poll Daily tracking.”
Now this is scary: the idea of a Halloween without the elaborate sights and sounds of Broadview Avenue in College Hill.
For more than a quarter century, residents of the 100 block of North Broadview have transformed their street into a Halloween extravaganza for kids, with streets festooned with lights and elaborate yard decorations and spooky sound effects. It’s a must-see experience.
But the event has grown so large in recent years — an estimated 3,500 people visited in 2007 — that it’s become a safety concern, and police say about $1,800 is needed to help pay for barricades and officers to work the event.
This is a wonderful neighborhood tradition that has become a community tradition. It’s well worth saving.
Let’s hope city officials and College Hill leaders work something out that will both keep the event going and enhance the safety of participants.
An anonymous “Obama insider” was quoted on the American Spectator’s Washington Prowler blog as saying that Barack Obama “really wanted (Kansas Gov. Kathleen) Sebelius, and if our European tour had played better here at home, she might have been the pick.” The source said that post-tour polling indicated “we needed the foreign policy on the bottom of the ticket more than we want to admit.”
The Wichita City Council acted wisely Tuesday in voiding, if only temporarily, the tax increment financing designation for 30 blocks around the Intrust Bank Arena. In doing so, it was responding to understandable concerns raised by Sedgwick County Manager William Buchanan about the broader fiscal impact of the TIF district. The split over the issue must to be resolved in a way that funds needed projects and spurs private development without drawing down too much of the tax base. And the sparkling new arena must not end up a diamond in the rough of its neighborhood.
