What I remember from Tiarht’s first term of Congress is when he decided he would join an effort by other clueless ideologically extreme freshmen Republicans to gut environmental regulations. The companies that would supposedly benefit from their efforts responded with horror, pointing out that having regulations gave them standards that legally protected them from liability. No regulations, open season and no protection from liability.

The one time I met him, he came across as an absolute moron, but maybe it was just the stresses of conducting his first Congressional campaign or something:

http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2008/03/tiahrt-lobbied-against-house-ethics-panel/#comment-312955

My wife met Tiarht before he entered politics, and remembers him as having charm. I have to admit the two times I met him he did not impress me, coming across as a definite lightweight. Be that as it may, and I would be the first to admit that I have underestimated him, in a statewide race he is at a definite disadvantage against Moran. The population growth in the state is definitely along the I-70 corridor, and while they are not necessarily liberal or Democratic, they are certainly not coalition conservative Christian Rightists either. And they do know both who Moran and Tiahrt are.

Royall:

Brownback beat Frahm and Docking in 1996, before the Christian Right overreached. Although there were establishment Republicans who were disgusted with the CR, they had not generated a backlash among the general population then. Keep in mind that Brownback has only run for the Senate once as an incumbant, and the Kansas Democrats, with their usual cluelessness, did not field a credible candidate. Believe me, if it was Brownback’s seat that Slattery was running for, the race would have been much more competitive.

As for Brownback’s gubanatorial hopes, we will see. If there is a credible moderate candidate in the primary, he might be in trouble (the problem is, I am not sure I see one on the horizon right now). As for the Democrats, well, as Ksfarmgrrl has observed (and I disagree with her on much of her analysis of Kansas politics, but not here), Sebelius has no coattails.

Political Mama:

“Moran voted with Bush some 95 or so percent of the time. Just remember that.”

That is completely irrelevant, and to be harsh but frank, this is exactly the kind of cluelessness that had made the Kansas Democrats a third party in their state. No one cares that Moran voted with Bush in Kansas. The point is, the contrast between Christian Right coalition conservative candidates and more “moderate” traditional Republican candidates is as much if not more style than substance. Both Moran and Roberts do not come across as ideologues, they treat dissenting voices with respect, and they both publically opposed Bush at his most ideologically clueless moments. Moderate Republicans are still Republicans, particularly on most fiscal policy issues. They get irritated at the Christian Right coalition conservatives whose primary agenda seems to be to create theocratic witchhunts on abortion providers and teaching children “intelligent design” and “traditional morality”. I once had a frustrating conversation with a prominient Democratic activist here who didn’t understand why the moderate Republicans did not become Democrats, and also confidently pronounced that they wouldn’t need “moderate” Republicans when the people of Kansas saw the light. In her eyes, a Republican is a Republican. Riiiiiight. Most of these people have been Republicans for generations. When they vote for a Democrat, they are first and foremost voting against the Republican candidate because they see the Republican as an obsessive compulsive nutcase. They don’t care how often a guy votes with Bush, but they might care if he is a “soul brother” to someone like Phill Kline or one of the more extreme State Board of Education members. The Kansas Democratic party, so far as I can tell, doesn’t even remotely get this. So, they throw their support behind a Jim Slattery because they think Pat Roberts is vulnerable for being Bush’s water boy on the Intelligence Committee, and that a Todd Tiarht is essentially unbeatable. Boyda fails to realize that she got elected because of votes against Jim Ryun, and that when Ryun lost in the primary to Jenkins, she started behind because Jenkins was an acceptable candidate to many of the people who voted for her in the last election.

The way for Kansas Democrats to win is to pick their battles, and to realize that when they win they are winning by votes against their opponents, particularly in state wide elections. I really haven’t seen them do this much. In fact, I have never really seen much coherent strategy from Kansas Democrats at all.

I’m not so sure about this. Jerry Moran is a good guy, one who definitely wears a white hat in Kansas politics, but I’m not so sure he’s well known in Eastern Kansas.

Up front and personally, I like both men. If Tiahrt worked as hard as Moran, he’d be a rock star because the guy can charm. [purely by chance, I once managed to share the dreaded Monday morning 6:30am flight out of ICT to DFW with Tiahrt as my seat mate. And as it turned out we flew out of DFW to Reagan together, too, so I got the chance to talk about things large and small with him. The guy's impressive. The conversation did not go the way I expected it would when he sat down next to me. I was with a bunch of Wichita aviation people, and in idle conversation later I learned that the women were fairly swooning over Tiahrt. Especially the young women. FWIW...] Tiahrt could get a big headstart in E Kansas solely on the basis of his ability to ruffle skirts.

I think that if Moran were to beat Tiahrt, it would be chalked up to pure-D hard work, where due to the size of the 1st and Moran’s constant travel of it, I do believe Jerry holds the advantage.

Moran may be the wallflower in that duo, but you’d be a fool to underestimate him or his work ethic. Not so sure that any Xian bona-fides would trump good old hard work — or sex appeal — in the primary, frankly.

“piss off!”

Heh! Now, no more soup for you!

Re: Regular
DNFTT

“I predict the papers will try to imply that Moran has the edge, but if Tiahrt loads up on his Popeye food early on and connects with the wheat state’s conservative collective unconscious, all bets are off. Republicans might very well have a ‘God problem’ nationally, but I’ve seen none of it here.”

Incredible. Royall, with all due respect, if you haven’t seen evidence of the “God Problem” in Kansas, then you have NOT been paying attention. Kansas has been the laboratory experiment for the “God Problem”, and it was Republican operatives who spotted the signs of it in this very state!!!

Phill Kline, various Kansas State Board of Education members, Jim Ryun, and most recently Dan Hedke right here in Sedgwick County were all sacrificed at the alter of the GOP’s God problem (all it took was the suggestion that Hedke was a stealth conservative looking to return the question of “intelligent design” to the State Board to sink him in essentially the same area of the state that returned Tiahrt to office). Believe me, if Huckabee, the chosen candidate of the Christian Rightists had been teh GOP candidate, Kansas would have been competitive.

Tiarht is deluded indeed if he thinks he can beat Moran in a statewide primary for the Senate, particularly because Tiarht’s record as a Christian Right conservative will work against him. Yes, Kansas Republicans have an overwhelming advantage. Christian Rightists, when the chips are down, will still go to the polls in the general election because they fear “liberal” Democrats almost as much if not more than they support their own. Republican lite is better to them than a “liberal”. Meanwhile, non-Christian Right Republicans are not as activist as their CR counterparts, but they view the CR with as much if not more disdain than they do Democrats. In general, they will vote for the person with the R after his or her name, but they are foul weather voters, and if they are convinced that the Democrat is moderate and the Republican is a CR activist, they will and do vote Democratic. The Kansas Democratic party shows little sign of figuring this out (otherwise, they would have thrown their support behind Betts rather than Slattery, the Kansas Democrats apparently being deluded enough to think that Roberts would be vulnerable because he had been Bush’s water boy on the Senate Intelligence Committee, but Roberts, although conservative, has never, ever come across as a knee jerk ideologue-and was therefore never unacceptable to the non-CR Republicans). As it is, no Democratic candidate for Tiahrt’s seat has had the resources to, or the ability to, identify Tiahrt with the Christian Right activitism that sank Ryun or Kline, or to identify themselves as an intelligent, relatively moderate, alternative (and Tiahrt has learned, sometimes the hard way, to cool it before going too far). However, Tiarht, particularly when running against a Moran, would not be able to escape scrutiny in a state wide election. He would not make it past Moran in the primary.

No evidence of a “God Problem” in Kansas???

Remarkable. You can NOT have been paying attention here!!!!!!

So how many have we killed with our bombs? At least they’re under the delusion that they’re trying to defend their homeland..what’s our excuse?

In 1981 when Reagan took office, Cessna had 20,000 employees.

By 1986 Cessna employed about 4,000.

St. Ronnie Reagan was a disaster for working Americans.
—————

What a dumb meaningless statement.
__________________________________

Stay ignorant of the truth outlander. It’s really workiong well for you Republicans.

Refuse to face the facts of your party and promote Palin your Goddess to be the Republican standardbearer.

You are sitting on the ashheap of your own destruction and slobbering it up like a pig playing in waller.

Thank you outlander for giving us Dems the power to change the world for the better after your kind made such an utter and complete mess of it.

Thank you for your blind loyalty to fiefdom and ignorance.

Yes we can! Yes we will!

The developing 2010 election narrative suggests that existing stalwarts of the Kansas delegation may reshuffle their positions somewhat, but we can all go to bed at night knowing that Brownback, Tiahrt and Moran–not unlike the poor–will always be with us. The story up on Kansas.com is that Tiahrt, after mentioning earlier in the week that he can’t even think about another campaign right now, must have had his spinach at some point during the week, because to hear him talk about 2010 all of a sudden, he appears to have undergone a rapid mid-November recovery to rival the famous cartoon character himself.

So it will be Moran vs. Tiahrt, most likely, in a battle pitting one conservative against another perhaps more “committed” conservative. You also have Republican officials such as Shallenburger getting nervous about a Republican primary fight.

The hope, apparently, is that one of the two contestants will read the tea leaves at some point before the game gets ugly and turn over his million dollar war chest to some worthy cause…though it’s not exactly clear what the cause might be.

It’s hard to imagine that the mighty Kansas G.O.P. wouldn’t be able to withstand a primary bout between a couple of heavyweight congressional contestants. Surely the framework is not nearly so fragile as the planners are dreaming it up to be. Right?

At any rate, as I mentioned the other night, my hope is that the Tiahrt team invites Governor Palin down for a round of tough campaigning.

What you have to remember is that Brownback got elected in Kansas, Huckabee won the Republican primary in the spring, and Palin appears to have been something of a hit among the faithful.

I predict the papers will try to imply that Moran has the edge, but if Tiahrt loads up on his Popeye food early on and connects with the wheat state’s conservative collective unconscious, all bets are off. Republicans might very well have a “God problem” nationally, but I’ve seen none of it here.

Are you kidding”?? He’s already waffeling on the gays in the military deal. He’s already lowering the expectations he ran on. You are the one who will cut him off at the knees. You won’t need my help.

“I would like to make one penitence. While I personally believe that the evidence on Obama’s Muslim upbringing, training, and associations are substantial, I do acquiesce that it is mostly circumstantial. Therefore if I had the opportunity to do it over, I would word the sign differently. My apologies.” – Pastor Mark

The apology came after Holick got schooled on the Constitution on national TV.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/11/20/nr.sanchez.preacher.sign.cnn

Dumb ol’ Holick thinks he knows more about the Constitution than the people who were involved in creating it. Or maybe because the church’s phone number got spread throughout the nation.

You got that right. SO, he won’t compromise.

Your party is broken, probably for the rest of your life. You ideas are dying. The people who HAVE your ideas are dying.

But that’s beauty of playing against you people.
You will (already are) finding a way to blow it. Between going with a retread Clinton team (Change?) and delaying “don’t ask, don’t tell”, and the “tax cuts” that will find a way not to happen, the Lib charade will be destroyed by people like Junior. From the inside out. Your own will sabatoge this deal. Obama will try to compromise once and the BJ’s of the party will eat him. Libs equals mis-interpret the election results.

What card can the cons play now to gin up turnout in a national election? They’re spent.

If enough bombs kill enough people detonated by the Religion of Peace(tm), maybe the leaders of the Muslims (the religion of Peace(tm) will step up and help stop it.
So far, so bad.

Come on now. The same states that went for Obama also voted down the “gay “”marriage”" amendment??
Don’t blame the cons. We (obviously) didn’t have that many votes. Methinks some of you people slipped over on that one.