Posted on 10/24/2018 6:34:23 AM PDT by centurion316
Kansas is a state entirely controlled by Republicans now and one that voted for President Donald Trump in 2016 by 20 points. And yet in a couple of weeks, voters there could elect a Democrat to be their governor for the first time in eight years - just in time to have a hand in the upcoming redistricting battle that could shape control of the state for the next decade.
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Republicans' fears have so far become reality. Polls show Democrat Laura Kelly and Kobach running about even, with a third-party candidate, Greg Orman, taking about 9 percent of the vote (mostly from the Democrat, theorize election watchers).
Kobach has struggled to get out from under the Brownback legacy, but he also brings new baggage. Kobach is perhaps best known nationally and in Kansas as the voter-fraud guy. Voter ID laws are popular in Republican states, but Kobach took that to a new level in the past two years.
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Democrats in Kansas agree that the race is basically about everything they're not. That's evidenced on the campaign trail, where Kelly - a decidedly less flashy character than Kobach - talks about how, as a legislator in the state Senate, she helped push the tax increase package that was a rebuke to Brownback.
Her campaign has gotten some serious momentum in the final weeks after being endorsed by every living former Republican governor of Kansas, save Brownback.
Kobach is doubling down on Trump, trying to drum up his and the president's shared base. One analyst watching the race said Trump's approval is about 50 percent, which isn't nearly as high as other conservative states - but at least the president is more popular than Kobach now, who polls in the 30 and 40 percent favorability rating.
(Excerpt) Read more at mysanantonio.com ...
Fantasy writing.
Love those democrat games of creating voting blocks to tell people that they are members of groups and that they must vote with the group or be ostracized.
Some Calis and Colorado folks but only to Johnson Co. Lawrence is hopelessly far left. But even our south central cousins in Cowly county are anti Kobach.
Who are the Republicans?
The greedy rich?
Appealing to the fantasy voters in Johnson County who will vote for the Democrat, or for Orman.
Given the absolute mess this guys administration has been... nearly bankrupting the state, its amazing he’s even in the race at all... Particularly with respect to schools etc....
I am beyond amazed the D isn’t up 20.
Exactly, I am amazed the D isn’t up 20%... This guy was a disaster.... The fact this race is competitive at ALL blows my mind.
Three way race with Orman taking 9% of the vote is the reason. Take him out of the equation and Kelly would be up by 7 or 8 points.
Telephone polls almost 2 time a night in johnson county
Some if the formerly nice apartment complexes looked to have Gone Section 8 from what I could tell in Joco
[Love those democrat games of creating voting blocks to tell people that they are members of groups and that they must vote with the group or be ostracized.]
Democrats have been pushing the “suburban women will vote Democrat” angle hard.
You must be reading the Democrat campaign and media narrative. Kris Kobach is not the current Governor, he is running for Governor. He defeated the current Governor in the Republican Primary.
That is not wise. Sam Brownback is hugely unpopular in Kansas. Most Republicans will vote to keep Laura Kelly out of the governor's mansion but want no part of a Brownback repeat. Many Republicans I know see Kobach as a wild-eyed version of Brownback and are reluctantly voting for him. Trump's support might raise Kobach up enough to overcome the Brownback drag but it's going to be close.
For a Republican to expect to win after the fiasco and disaster that was Brownbeck is still insane.... The fact the R isn’t down 20 is beyond surprising to me.
Like it or not the GOP had complete control of the legislature and Governorship through the entire fiasco... for ANY GOP Candidate for governor to even be competitive astounds me... They completely screwed the pooch in Kansas, and so far haven’t really paid a high price for it.
If Kansans are so stupid as to vote for more Brownback, then they deserve what they get.
Brownback can claim ignorance, as he was just following ideological mantra, and learned the hard way, it didn’t work... If this guy is calling for more of it, then he’s just a fool.
I am no Democrat, but if the people of Kansas don’t punish the GOP for the Fiasco that was the Brownback administration.. (and the complicit legislature of his time in office) then they have learned nothing.
The fact the GOP candidate isn’t down 20 after what was Brownbacks tenure makes me worry about Kansas in general.
No, I’d prefer to not have a D governor of any state, but sometimes you have to smack the dog on the nose with a newspaper.... and rewarding the GOP for abject insanity and mismanagement is not going to help Kansas long term.
I wonder what the legislative polling looks like... if the GOP is still looking at super majorities in the legislature after the election, I am hard pressed to believe no punishment will come to the GOP... if it doesn’t the people of Kansas have learned nothing from this mess.
Even that's deceptive. Kansas really has three political parties: there are the social conservative Republicans, the fiscal conservative Republicans, and the Democrats. Used to be that the fiscal conservative Republicans tried to keep spending and taxes at a reasonable level while the social conservatives tried to pack school boards with creationists. Brownback decimated the fiscal conservative Republicans a couple of elections ago to push through his tax cuts but they and the Democrats made a comeback last election. So even though the Republicans hold super majorities in both houses doesn't mean that Kobach could get his tax cuts through again even if he won. It would depend on how the Republican majority splits.
Kobach playing the same card as Brownback... tax cuts will raise revenues.... That didn’t work out for Brownback at all, and for him to play that same line is just foolish.
If there is a lesson that “market uber alles” is just as dangerous as “governent uber alles” its what happened in Kansas....
Brownback could at least claim ignorance, as he just followed ideological dogma... but for anyone to be making that same argument after the results of that fiasco, is a flat out fool.
Like I said before, the fact the GOP aren’t 20 points down blows my mind... there is no way anyone can spin Brownback as anything but a disaster.
I will give you my two cents on the history as I lived there or one county out for over sixty years.
Kansas has Lawrence with a Free State solid Republican heritage until liberal university climate began to dominate and Douglas county along with Wyandotte (KC, KS) and Sedgwick (Wichita) began to go Democratic.
Kansas was Eisenhower country. Old main street agricultural leanings with a strong sense of do your duty that kept it out of the America First isolationism crowd. Arch conservatism did not get traction with the William Buckley crowd but instead, with the Pro Life movement. The Republican Party became so divided with a Pro Life faction functioning as a single-issue group and the rest of the Party being more a main street mercantile/Ag group that they did not work together in the 70s.
I had one Governor’s son as a buddy. I have been in Alf Landon’s home. I grew up in Johnson County when it was one of the most comfortable suburban counties in the nation. Johnson County was a swing county. I passed out fliers for Goldwater in the 64 election as a YAF kid and felt that the suburban middle aged people were not seeing what was on the horizon.
The Brownback dedication to cutting taxes when the state was already running in the red was idiotic for the Obama Depression economy, IMHO.
Even though he lowered taxes, people were upset at the loss of public services, but mostly money for education.
Kansas has suffered a huge loss in jobs and industry. Even Cessna saw layoffs which for them is unheard of.
Wichita looks like a third world nation with homes suffering neglect and abandonment. Businesses closed. Roads in town were falling apart. There is only now under Trump, monies available for road repairs.
Most of us realize the culprit was 0bama, and Brownbeck tried to shore up those losses with lower taxes, but he took the whipping for the 0bama slide into poverty.
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