Some of those folks whose names are down a ways on the ballot — say at the Kansas House of Representatives slot — are starting to wonder just what the intense, often mean-spirited and sometimes ridiculous campaigns at the top will do to or for them.
This year has the appearance of becoming one of the most active ticket-splitting elections Kansans have seen in a while. It’s likely that the diminishing number of straight-ticket voters is going to be wildly outnumbered by voters who will pick a candidate or two from the “other” party.
But…there is that family tradition, and there are still diehard Republicans and Democrats who heard at the dinner table for years that wandering across their family’s party line will be a factor come Judgment Day.
The top-of-the-ballot contests are a little unsettling for those who have watched politics for years.
They are the races for the biggest jobs in Kansas politics—say the U.S. Senate seat and the governorship—the contests that in many years wouldn’t be much of a decision for most voters but have turned out to be a little grimy.
Between lap dances and parsing just what is school finance and what isn’t, the governor’s race is almost an accountant’s choice… The definition and redefinition of what comprises state aid to education is one of those classic “which side of the fence you stand on” battles that most Kansans haven’t yet parsed out.
The tax cuts? Irresponsible if you didn’t get one, responsible if you believe that the measure will bring more jobs to Kansas.
But…it’s the tone of the commercials, that makes it difficult to learn what the new Fords will look like this year, that is unsettling in what has traditionally been more straightforward “vote for me” not “vote against him” campaigning.
At the Senate race level, it’s more about whom each candidate’s friends are and whether shifting the political control of the U.S. Senate is going to produce any results that will matter to us folk who live in Kansas.
That control of the Senate issue: Three-term Republican Pat Roberts, R-Kan., wants Republicans to run the Senate, and he’s a solid vote for GOP leadership. Independent Greg Orman of Olathe says he’ll see who has the numbers and caucus with the majority party, whichever it is.
Practically, if the U.S. Senate is split so that Orman’s decision chooses which party runs the chamber, you’d think that he would be in a pretty good position to—is extort too strong a word?—bargain for what he thinks Kansans would like. Roberts, with his decades of Washington experience, probably would pick up an important committee chairmanship which Orman has little chance as a freshman to get.
But the tone of the ads and the debates appear to have little to do with Kansas. Nobody arguing for new roads, that aqueduct to get water from east to west Kansas, or something that would make much difference in our daily lives.
So it gets down to who knows whom, who attended or missed committee hearings and such.
And, those ballot-top campaigns have some Kansas House candidates wondering whether voters, after those exhaustive choices, will just return to the party of their parents for the rest of the ballot, vote out incumbents whose names they recognize, or figure they ought to pay some homage to the party they grew up with.
It’s probably worth remembering while that top of the ballot scrap is interesting, and there’s more money there for commercials and such, it’s your state representative who is going to be voting on that off-ramp that you want, or the distance that a school district will send a bus to get your kids or grandkids to and school each day, and whether roofers are adequately vetted before they get the ladders out of their trucks.
Down-ballot isn’t the Super Bowl, but it’s closer to where and how you live.
Syndicated by Hawver News Co. of Topeka, Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report. To learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit www.hawvernews.com.
