There has been talk of President Obama replacing Joe Biden on the 2012 ticket with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But “I think he’s more likely to pick Kathleen Sebelius, his health and human services secretary,” wrote John A. Tures of Southern Political Report, noting her record as a two-term Kansas governor and status as “the linchpin of Obama’s key piece of legislation.” He continued: “Obama is as likely to be judged on the health care bill as the economy in 2012. Obama doesn’t need to show years (of) experience or foreign policy expertise, having been on the job for four years. It would help to have someone on the ticket with additional management skills, as the ex-Kansas governor would provide.”
Republicans’ family feud for control of the Kansas Senate in the 2012 elections “will shape the arc of Gov. Sam Brownback’s term,” noted Kansas City Star columnist Steve Kraske. He suggested that as conservatives try to take control of the Senate from moderates and swing the chamber Brownback’s way on issues such as tax rates and school finance, the two sides could spend far more than the $5.9 million spent on Senate races in 2008. “If you think all of this is abstract politics that doesn’t affect your life, reach up and slap yourself right now,” Kraske wrote. “For the next few years, everything happening in Topeka will affect you in the most personal of ways because of the sea change the Brownback administration is pursuing.”
Good for Gov. Sam Brownback for wanting to direct some sunlight on the darkness of child abuse. At the 35th-annual Governor’s Conference for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect last week in Topeka, Brownback said that his administration would regularly publicize county-by-county child abuse statistics, the Lawrence Journal-World reported. Doing so, he said, should prompt questions and drive actions on the local level to focus on child abuse. From July through September, Kansas recorded 14,850 child-in-need-of-care intake reports, according to information on the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services’ website. Sedgwick County had 2,356 of those reports, or 16 percent.
“The taxpayers are not someone’s private cookie jar for them to reach in and get what they want from the taxpayer, but that’s what this process is based upon.” — Sedgwick County Commissioner Richard Ranzau, on the economic development policy that enabled Johnson Controls to get forgivable loans from the city and county
“Momma’s going to be making cookies big time for our community with this proposal.” — Sedgwick County Commissioner Jim Skelton, about Johnson Controls’ 182 new jobs
There has been talk of President Obama replacing Joe Biden on the 2012 ticket with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But “I think he’s more likely to pick Kathleen Sebelius, his health and human services secretary,” wrote John A. Tures of Southern Political Report, noting her record as a two-term Kansas governor and status as “the linchpin of Obama’s key piece of legislation.” He continued: “Obama is as likely to be judged on the health care bill as the economy in 2012. Obama doesn’t need to show years (of) experience or foreign policy expertise, having been on the job for four years. It would help to have someone on the ticket with additional management skills, as the ex-Kansas governor would provide.”
