August 2008
Aug. 28, 2008
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Aug. 25, 2008)A bit uneasy?
DENVER—It is just Monday and the Democratic National Convention hasn’t even gaveled in its first session, but already some Kansas delegates to this festival appear to be a little uneasy.
It’s about the vice presidential nominee, of course, and while nobody has any reason to believe that the delegates won’t approve both Sen. Barack Obama, of Illinois, and Joe Biden, of Delaware, as their presidential/vice presidential team, there’s a feeling of something left behind…
And while Democrats are prepared to be practical, very practical as they stand a decent chance of electing a president, the “change” that sparked many of the new Democrats and the young seems to have been dialed-back considerably.
Sure, Obama himself, as a black American, is more change than the nation has seen but those looking for more change, and believing that Obama is a strong enough candidate to help carry that change, just aren’t seeing it in Senate veteran Biden.
Informally delegates here—especially those who are supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton for the presidential nomination—are disappointed. Not that they believed there was much chance that Clinton would wind up being the vice presidential nominee, but they believe that Biden doesn’t represent anything very different. Not much change.
And Kansans who were hoping that “change” meant a really different ticket, say, Obama and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, don’t seem quite as enthused as they might.
Not that Sebelius was a lock, but that the concept of change is, well, one that doesn’t work well in small quantities. How much change is so little change that, well, it’s really not much change?
There’s a line somewhere.
Those signs for Kansans driving west to Denver for the convention didn’t say “slightly larger-than-life” prairie dog just 50 miles ahead. The signs said “50-foot tall prairie dog” and while nobody’s going to pull over for a slightly larger than life prairie dog, there’s a business model that suggests some will for a 50-footer. There’s that aspect to change there has to be enough change, enough difference from life as we’ve known it as Americans for however old we are, to make a venture into change attractive or even worth a look.
The week may tell us just how Democrats are going to go about marketing their ticket to Republicans. They’ve got the Democrats, of course, but they need Republicans and swing voters, and offering them change with some limits might be a marketing plan. Limited change? Enough change? All the change you can handle? How much change do you really want, anyway?
Best prediction is that by the time Kansans are heading home from the convention, they’ll have a handle on just how to market their ticket to friends and acquaintances, judging just how much change they believe their friends can handle and adjusting the sales pitch to close the deal.
Biden probably dials back change, where Clinton or maybe Sebelius wouldn’t. But, for those who are looking for a Democratic ticket that not only looks like but talks like more change than Americans have seen from one administration to another, well…it looks like Obama/Biden provides that. But, it’s just a dab less change than many new Democrats, and first-time voting youths, were looking for…
Syndicated by Hawver News Co. LLC; Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report, which reports on the government and politics of Kansas. For more information, visit www.hawvernews.com
Aug. 21, 2008
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Aug. 18, 2008)
The new voter puzzle
Some around the Statehouse are looking at the upcoming Democratic National Convention and the presidential election results as indicators of just where American politics—and Kansas politics—might be headed in the next 10 or 20 years.
The reason for the import? Besides just learning who the new president will be, the nature of the groundswell of youngsters who are fans of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., may decide whether a generation of young voters will continue to vote.
It might come down to something as simple as young voters taking the time and trouble to become registered voters—Democrat voters—and deciding that if their candidate isn’t elected president, well, the “system” just doesn’t work.
That’s of some concern, up and down the ballot.
First, Democrats in Kansas noted that the Obama phenomenon brought the party thousands of new voters, and for many of them, this will be their first voting experience. And not many were surprised that those new voters were interested in the top of the ticket…Obama, and were a dab unfamiliar with down-ballot races. At one February caucus, during a very random inquiry of the sort that would make real pollsters blush, it appeared that few of the Obama-charged youngsters knew who their state representative or county commissioner is. It is a top-ballot interest that brought out the youngest of voters.
Luckily for Democrats, the party gathered thousands of e-mail addresses at the February caucuses, and if they were legible, the party has thousands of new adherents who ought to be receiving a lot of e-mail from the party about Obama, of course, but the rest of the ballot, too.
The real question is just what those young enthusiasts are expecting from their first voting experience.
If Obama wins the presidential sweepstakes, they are likely to find new confidence in this voting business that they’ve heard their parents talk about for years. If Obama doesn’t win election, then it’s going to be for many the last time they’re going to waste time on a Tuesday in November when they could be instant-messaging one-another.
For Republicans, the result of that disappointment among young Obama voters could essentially reduce the voter pool in subsequent elections—probably a benefit until the next charismatic Democrat at the top of the ballot comes along. And that means in all likelihood that in a majority-Republican state like Kansas, thousands of potential voters who are at least marginally inclined to vote Democratic may not turn out in future elections…advantage Republican.
The real question right now is whether folks who have been doing politics and watching politics and talking politics for decades have any good idea just what those new young voters’ intentions are. They might just vote Obama and leave for lunch, or they might do straight tickets, or they might choose a county attorney candidate whose name is similar to a rock star’s.
It’s one of those situations where nobody knows for sure what’s going to happen to that group of new voters, and almost every inclination to guess how those voters are going to behave is either insulting or just juvenile. “Will they get fussy in the voter booth and only vote for every-other office?” “Will they quit voting if they don’t win?” Hard for old folks to figure anything except the young voters’ fervor now and just guess where it’s going if Obama wins or loses.
But it’s a puzzle that has down-ballot folks, like legislators, a little uneasy. All of those young voters appear to want change, but some on the ballot now are wondering whether they know the difference between “change” and just “different.”
We’ll know part of the answer in November, and probably the rest of the answer in November 2010.
Aug. 14, 2008
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Aug. 11, 2008)Immigration no longer hot-button?
Interesting thing happened at the Kansas primary election last week: Immigration has apparently faded as a hot-button legislative issue in the 41 primary election races where it might have been argued. But, that might change.
Judging by the only debate for a seriously contested GOP nomination in Kansas for Congress, immigration (in its federal-only mirror image issue of “amnesty”) apparently either wasn’t a serious issue or was just so badly played by both candidates that most debate watchers figured it wasn’t a big deal.
While immigration mesmerized the most conservative House and Senate members in last spring’s Legislature, the issue stalled when businesses ranging from the umbrella groups such as the state Chamber of Commerce to narrower interest groups such as livestock and agricultural lobbies opposed it. Their message: It’s a federal issue, don’t put Kansas businesses out of business for accidentally hiring illegal immigrants for jobs that they need done. And, really, seriously don’t put those businesses out of business for that mistake, costing loss of jobs for U.S. citizens.
In several districts, candidates for their party’s nomination for the Legislature reported nobody this summer brought up immigration. And, in districts were it was brought up by potential voters, candidates generally said their concerns were that Kansas taxpayers’ money shouldn’t be spent on people who aren’t U.S. citizens and who shouldn’t be in the U.S. anyway.
Now, federal law requires that children in Kansas be educated in public schools and that people with serious injuries or illnesses get medical treatment. But Kansas really doesn’t know what it spends on any sort of programs for illegal immigrants, or undocumented aliens, maybe those who have out-stayed a visa or work permit.
That is likely to change later this year when the Kansas Legislative Post Audit Division is to complete an audit to determine whether Kansas really spends much money on services—except education and emergency health care—for non-citizens.
Kansans got a partial peek into the issue a month ago, when Post Audit learned that maybe one person who wasn’t a U.S. citizen had nearly received some benefit under a Medicaid program. The look-see cost thousands of dollars in administrative work by the state’s health care agency, but at least someone looked. It was an expensive peek, though.
On a broader scale, it’s going to be difficult to tell whether Kansas spends much money on people who really aren’t here legally, but if anyone can find out, it’s Post Audit. And the results are likely to be immediately politically charged…if the results arrive before the November general election. The detail and the specific questions that legislators want the audit to cover may push its completion beyond the election. But this is one better done right than done quickly.
What happened to immigration as an issue that mesmerized…well, either the public or just the news media?
It might have just faded in the brighter light of $4 gasoline or the general malaise of the economy and the housing market. Or, it might just have been an issue that is a bigger issue under the Statehouse dome than on the streets and behind voters’ doors in Kansas.
Upshot of immigration fading—unless both sides of the issue are fed the raw meat of an audit—may be that candidates at least for legislative seats talk about something they can actually do something about, like raise or lower taxes or fund or de-fund schools or maybe do something about health care.
But from the first test of whether immigration is a serious issue among Kansas voters, the indication is that if candidates are looking for a hot issue, it’s elsewhere…
Aug. 7, 2008
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Aug. 4, 2008)
Behind the veil
Kansas just went through its first election cycle with reporting of last-minute payments to candidates for the House and Senate.
It’s hard to tell for sure what we learned, but Kansans who care probably got a little better look at how money moves through campaigns.
We learned, for example, that the State Senate’s Republican campaign fund sent money to a moderate Republican political organization ahead of the primary election.
We learned, also, that the Senatorial Democrats’ campaign fund channeled money through its committee to a challenger to a three-term incumbent Democratic senator.
And we probably learned that at least a couple organizations were just tardy in sending out their campaign contributions and wound up in a dim spotlight, but in the light, nonetheless.
The enhanced reporting pierced the traditional 11-day before the election time period when no significant campaign finance information was publicly available.
Practically, the opened-up reporting approved during the last legislative session was considered to be a milestone. News organizations liked it, fans of “transparency” liked it, and it seemed like a way to allow just ordinary Kansas voters with access to the Internet to see some of the under-the-covers movement of money.
For most Kansans, we’ll presume that they never took a look at the money movement. At some point, they saw its results: more mail, more TV, more radio and newspaper advertisements and maybe phone calls, either by live people or the dreaded “robo” calls, which are basically recorded messages coming into your home that now at least identify their sponsors early in the call so you can decide whether you want to listen or let the dog out.
It may be possible some day for us to learn just how many people went to the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission website for a look behind the veil of campaign finance. Then we can draw some conclusions about whether Kansans were ready for the new information that became available as the primary election campaign pushed to election day, and some judgments can be made about the value of the additional information.
And it may take at least another election cycle for most Kansans who are interested to figure out where that information is and maybe how to make a judgment on the velocity of money in a campaign and whether it is of any interest to them.
Part of that education will be figuring out just what those last-minute contributors are interested in.
The names are, of course, all noble sounding, the sort of names that you might want to give money to because it sounds like the groups share your interests. But they’re not all clear, and, for example, most of us are interested in lifesaving cures, but may not be into stem cell research. See the problem there? Do you want to give or not, and for the candidates who are the ultimate beneficiaries of that money, are they for what you are for?
The reports showing that in the Senate, for example, money went to particular senators, well, that’s curious, but it is done for a reason by the people who lead the Republican and Democratic caucuses of the upper chamber. It does give even the casual inquirer a clear message about whom the leadership wants in their caucuses, and that’s another choice that people can make if they have problems with how that late-in-the-cycle money was apportioned.
All-in-all, this primary cycle saw more information for voters to ponder. It’s the sort of things that you don’t see on brochures or generally read about in the newspapers because newspapers, too, are just learning how to use the information.
This might get more interesting in the general election. We may be able to tell just how interesting it is by checking who gets sworn into office in January.