GOP leaders are appropriately turning on Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who was convicted Monday on seven counts of failing to disclose about $250,000 in gifts and services. John McCain said that Stevens “has broken his trust with the people” and should step down. But Stevens has vowed to fight on and urged Alaskans to re-elect him next week.
Kansas remains ruby-red McCain country, with the Republican favored to win 53 to 41 percent over Barack Obama in the latest SurveyUSA poll co-sponsored by Wichita’s KWCH, Channel 12. But Obama led by 10 percent among the 15 percent of Kansans who said last week that they had voted early. McCain led by 15 percent among those yet to vote.
“We’re the bogeyman,” Sedgwick County District Judge Tony Powell told the Kansas City Star, referring to conservative state legislators-turned-judges Powell, Eric Yost and Jeff Goering and Sedgwick County.
“But look at what we’ve done, look at the reality, look at the performance. We don’t bring our politics to the bench. We do what the law requires. And it would be no different in Johnson County,” Powell said, about that county’s Nov. 4 ballot initiative on whether to start electing its judges.
Wichita attorney Ann Soderberg seconded that view: “We have a great bench. Whether they’re liberal, conservative or in the middle, they apply the law.”
The Web site politicalhumor.about.com has been rounding up the best bumper sticker slogans of the presidential campaign. Those for Republicans include “McCain-Palin: A Hero and a Hottie,” “Your Wallet: The One Place Democrats Are Willing to Drill,” “Burly Men for Palin, Girlie Men for Biden,” “Clinging to God and My Gun While I Vote Republican” and “I Wanna Be Sarah’s Intern!” The Democrats‘ include “John McCain: Like Bush, But Older,” “This One Is Voting For That One,” “McCain-Palin: Unstable and Unable,” “Polar Bears Against Palin” and “If I Owned 7 Houses, I’d Think the Economy Was Great Too!”
GOP leaders are appropriately turning on Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who was convicted Monday on seven counts of failing to disclose about $250,000 in gifts and services. John McCain said that Stevens “has broken his trust with the people” and should step down. But Stevens has vowed to fight on and urged Alaskans to re-elect him next week.
