Tag: kansas

The day that The New Republic snapped like a rotten twig. #kssen

You have to laugh, because the alternative is to… well, laugh. In that way that makes people nervous.

tnr

…said method of ‘voter suppression’ being ‘forcing Kansas Democrats to confront the fact that they nominated an absolutely horrible candidate for Senate.’ Amusingly, at this moment TNR’s own comments section (link below) is throwing tomatoes at the author; this will change, but in the meantime… chortle. Just not in a fashion that will have your neighbors call the cops.

Via

Too clever by half: Kansas Democrats may be stuck with Chad Taylor on the Kansas-SEN ticket.

Let me summarize the Hill article: as of this moment, hastily-withdrawn Chad Taylor is back on the ballot for Kansas’s Senate race. Turns out that state law has very specific criteria for withdrawing from the ballot after the primary – like being dead, or being incapable to do the job. And if it’s the latter, you have to say so. Chad Taylor, in his withdrawal letter, did not. Better and better, even if Taylor is allowed to withdraw then the state Democratic party is obliged to put up a replacement.

This puts Democrats in a definite bind.  It would seem that Chad Taylor has a bad reputation for not prosecuting domestic abuse cases for the sake of a headline or two; after it blew up in his face in 2011 the man’s been damaged goods*.   So, basically, even if the Kansas Secretary of State – Republican; and, a reminder, these elections matter – decides to let Taylor off of the hook then the Democrats have to decide whether to put up another Democrat, or just admit that Greg Orman is really a Democrat who will caucus with Democrats if he was elected.  Fairly clearly, either scenario makes yesterday’s ploy absolutely blipping useless.  If a Democrat has to stay on the ticket, then they’re back to losing the election.  If Greg Orman is tagged as a Democrat once and for all, then they’re back to losing the election.
Continue reading Too clever by half: Kansas Democrats may be stuck with Chad Taylor on the Kansas-SEN ticket.

Kathleen Sebelius said to be mulling running for Kansas Senate. …No, really.

Alternate title: Kathleen Sebelius must accept that her career is dust in the wind.

It’s in the New York Times and everything. Of course, even the New York Times can’t ignore basic reality:

Even if Ms. Sebelius had not presided over the Department of Health and Human Services at a time of turmoil and self-inflicted distress — and while carrying out a law that inspires such anger on the right — her candidacy would be a tough sell in Kansas. Democrats have not held a Senate seat in the state since 1939. And even before the president’s popularity started to take a steep slide last year, he fared especially poorly in Kansas, winning only 38 percent of the vote there in 2012.

The Old Gray Lady did her level best to try to run some volts through the chest of this possible scenario – which, if it came to pass, would absolutely ensure Republican turnout in Kansas in November* – but the Times’ heart wasn’t in it, and left unsaid was the political reality that the GOP is looking for a good, solid political excuse to turn Sebelius replacement Sylvia Mathews Burwell’s confirmation hearings into a furball. That would embarrass Barack Obama… and no Democrat may embarrass Barack Obama.  Certainly no female Democrat may. Only Obama’s feelings are worthy of consideration these days, it seems.

So, Kathleen Sebelius should pretty much face facts: she sacrificed her career and her reputation to the dubious glory of Barack Obama.  Time for her to accept her destiny as just another K Street lobbyist…

Via Hot Air Headlines.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Yup, been wanting to use that line for a while.

*Unfortunately, Kansas is such a hardcore Republican state already that we couldn’t use it to toss out Democrats on the federal and/or statewide level; I’m not sure if there are any.  And we’re already at super-majority levels in the state legislature anyway.

Thomas Frank still can’t quit Kansas (the reverse is apparently not true).

Not much to say about, except that Thomas Frank apparently wonders now why the hell he bothered to write What’s The Matter With Kansas?* – and my but he is bitter about it. What makes it kind of entertaining, in an admittedly not-nice way, is that he almost gets the real problem:

For the ruling faction of the Democratic party, meanwhile, I felt like the Kansas story triggered a bout of guilty conscience. To begin with, there was something true at the core of all the conservative bullshit: we really are ruled by a meritocratic, professional elite — just look at the members of the president’s cabinet, or who gets interviewed on NPR — and a great number of meritocratic believers really are found in the ranks of the Democrats. As a party, they are openly in love with expertise; it is who they are; it means more to them than any ideology. It’s the awful story of “The Best and the Brightest” repeating itself over and over and over again.

Continue reading Thomas Frank still can’t quit Kansas (the reverse is apparently not true).

#rsrh Wait, what, the Kansas primaries are closed already? (Santorum won)

That’s what Fox News is saying… ah.  Caucuses.  Much is now explained. Rick Santorum won that particular contest, although the way that the caucus system distributes delegates is – say it with me, folks – “complicated.”

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney won Guam and the Northern Marianas Islands.  Don’t laugh: that netted him eighteen more delegates.  In fact, given that 215 people in Guam gave Romney nine more delegates, the real question is why the other candidates didn’t even bother to try…

Moe Lane

PS: This reminds me of the 2008 nomination process, all over again.  The good news is, it reminds me of the Democratic nomination process; the bad news is, I don’t think that the 2008 Democratic nomination process necessarily produced the best candidate (I wonder what the battlespace would have looked like, absent the financial meltdown).

#rsrh Yes, David Carr, you said that aloud.

“If it’s Kansas, Missouri, no big deal. You know, that’s the dance of the low-sloping foreheads.”

Let’s see:

Kansas
Former Governor, current HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

Missouri
Governor Jay Nixon
Attorney General Chris Koster
Secretary of State Robin Carnahan
Treasurer Clint Zweifel
Representative William ‘Lacy’ Clay
Representative Russ Carnahan (OK, I’ll give him this one)
Representative Emanuel Cleaver
Senator Claire McCaskill

I’m trying to imagine what the reaction would be if I referred to any of these people – besides Russ Carnahan, of course – as being ‘low-sloping forehead’ types. Something memorable, I’d imagine. But then, I’m not a writer for the New York Times, so possibly people just simply require me to have basic social hygiene.

Moe Lane

[Oops! HT: Hot Air Headlines]