With Mitt Romney’s decisive wins in three primaries Tuesday, and his mounting lead in delegates, it’s only a matter of time before he sews up the GOP presidential nomination. But how much time will that be? Party leaders are urging Republicans to rally around Romney and stop the damaging primary fights. But Rick Santorum is pressing on, holding out for the April 24 primary in Pennsylvania, his home state. That’s a risky gamble for both Santorum and the GOP. “Santorum runs the risk of either embarrassment, if he loses Pennsylvania, or becoming seen within his party as a spoiler if he stays in the race indefinitely and continues to attack Romney,” the Washington Post reported.
Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker noted that this is the first time since World War II that no major candidate for president served in the armed forces. (He doesn’t count Ron Paul, who was an Air Force flight surgeon.) Barack Obama and Rick Santorum were too young for the Vietnam-era draft. Mitt Romney got a deferment while he was on a Mormon mission, then had a high number in the draft lottery. Newt Gingrich received student deferments. “Does anyone care?” Toobin asked. “Not much, it seems. For presidential candidates, the issue of military service has gone from obligatory to controversial to irrelevant.” He concluded: “We have no fewer wars than we once did – they are arguably greater in number, in fact – but there has been a sort of brutal efficiency in the march from the Second World War to Vietnam to Iraq. They yield fewer veterans, although, lately, more and more deployments. For better or worse, their claim on the nation’s attention is smaller. So it goes with their efforts to be president, too.”
Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration should be forthcoming about the reasons for the Friday firings of Kansas Juvenile Justice Authority Commissioner Curtis L. Whitten (in photo) and Deputy Commissioner Dennis Casarona, rather than characterize them as a personnel issue that necessitates confidentiality. Especially when a member of the governor’s cabinet gets the ax, Kansans and state legislators deserve to know why. Whitten, a Wichita businessmen and president of the Wichita Metro Youth Football League, also has served on the Kansas African American Affairs Commission and the Governor’s Task Force on Racial Profiling. Casarona was a key, respected administrator at the authority, having worked there for 10 years and been deputy commissioner for eight. Worse, Whitten and Casarona reportedly were fired by phone, and not by Brownback or someone high in the administration. A lawmaker who has worked closely with both Whitten and Casarona, state Sen. Dick Kelsey, R-Goddard, told The Eagle editorial board: “I believe the public deserves explanation of why the two top people in an agency were abruptly dismissed without any explanation to them or to the public.”
With Mitt Romney’s decisive wins in three primaries Tuesday, and his mounting lead in delegates, it’s only a matter of time before he sews up the GOP presidential nomination. But how much time will that be? Party leaders are urging Republicans to rally around Romney and stop the damaging primary fights. But Rick Santorum is pressing on, holding out for the April 24 primary in Pennsylvania, his home state. That’s a risky gamble for both Santorum and the GOP. “Santorum runs the risk of either embarrassment, if he loses Pennsylvania, or becoming seen within his party as a spoiler if he stays in the race indefinitely and continues to attack Romney,” the Washington Post reported.
