Now that the midterm elections are over and the GOP has regained control of the U.S. House, top Republican leaders are focusing on their next big goal: Stopping former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin from running for president. Politico reported that many top GOP leaders believe “Palin’s nomination would ensure President Barack Obama’s re-election, as the deficiencies that marked her 2008 debut as a vice presidential nominee — an intensely polarizing political style and often halting and superficial answers when pressed on policy — have shown little sign of abating in the past two years.” Palin dismissed the article, saying that the anonymous sources needed to “man up” and that they were “making stuff up again.”
Some hope that the GOP takeover of the House will cause the two parties to work together to get things done. But some political analysts are warning of the opposite — that Congress will become even more polarized. One reason is that most of the Democratic incumbents who lost were fiscal conservatives from Republican-leaning districts. That means that the Democrats who are left in Congress are more liberal. And based on how some of their colleagues were punished in GOP primaries for seeking bipartisan solutions, remaining moderate Republican lawmakers may be less likely to make deals with Democrats.
If any Democrat didn’t deserve to go down with his party’s ship Tuesday, it was state Treasurer Dennis McKinney. A farmer and pro-life, pro-gun conservative Democrat who led the minority in the Kansas House, McKinney was a friend to everybody and did a good job after being appointed treasurer by then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. “Shoot, the guy is a Greensburg tornado survivor who helped lead the town’s rescue and recovery efforts, beginning when he lifted his neighbor and her 1-year-old son to safety from the rubble of their home,” wrote Topeka Capital-Journal columnist Ric Anderson. “In other words, McKinney was about as electable as you could get except for being a Democrat. But this year, that was like being about as handsome as you could be except for having an arm growing out of your forehead.”
Kudos to the city of Wichita for working with the Kansas Department of Transportation to open a currently closed section of Broadway so that motorcyclists at Sunday’s annual Toy Run can travel safely from Lawrence-Dumont Stadium to the Kansas Coliseum. The bikers were going to have to take an alternate route that could not be blocked off, which raised safety concerns. Good for Mayor Carl Brewer (in photo) and other city and state officials for helping keep the event safe and successful.