Tag: paul davis
Moderate Thunder Out Of Kansas

Moderate Thunder Out Of Kansas

IOLA, KS. — The several dozen citizens gathered at a street corner just off the main square of this southeastern Kansas town of 5,600 were polite and friendly in the Midwestern way. They did not look in the least like a band of counterrevolutionaries intent on reversing the direction of the government in Topeka.

Yet the results of the Tea Party rebellion four years ago have led these civic-minded, middle-of-the-road Kansans to a quiet but fierce determination to take their state back from those who once talked incessantly about taking their country back.

What brought them together earlier this week was a visit from Paul Davis, the Democratic candidate for governor. Davis has generally been running ahead of Republican incumbent Sam Brownback in what is one of the country’s most consequential showdowns on next Tuesday’s ballot.

Brownback set things up this way by launching what he called, proudly and unapologetically, a “real, live experiment” that he hoped would provide a model of red-state governance. He pushed steep income and business tax cuts through the Legislature, insisting that his program would spur unprecedented economic growth. The results so far have been less than inspiring: large budget deficits, credit downgrades, and substantial cuts in education spending, some of which were reversed only because of a court order. Only rarely does an election pose such a clear philosophical and policy choice.

Brownback often cited low-tax Texas as his model, prompting a ready reply from Davis. “They don’t want to be like Texas,” he said in an interview at his storefront headquarters here. “They just want to be Kansas.”

What it means to be Kansas is precisely what’s at stake, and it’s why Davis’ campaign uses #RestoreKansas — a traditionalist’s slogan when you think about it — as its Twitter battle cry. The choice Davis is offering is not between liberalism and conservatism but between two kinds of conservatism — the deeply anti-government Tea Party kind, and an older variety that values prudence and fiscal restraint but also expects government to provide, as Davis put it, “the basic services that are essential to the state’s vitality.”

In his stump speech, Davis emphasizes public education, transportation, Brownback’s rejection of the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, and a widely unpopular privatization of Kansas’ Medicaid program.

What’s striking is how many Republicans have joined Davis’ effort, including a large group of Republican politicians, some of whom Brownback purged in bitter primaries. Achieving ideological purity in the GOP turns out to have high costs, and Davis spoke of “the many functions we’ve had where we had more Republicans than Democrats.”

“I like those,” he adds.

Indeed he does. In a state where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by almost two-to-one, moderately conservative Republicans are the swing voters.

Some are shocked that Kansas is one of this year’s battlegrounds, not only in the governor’s race but also in the pivotal U.S. Senate contest between independent Greg Orman and incumbent Republican Pat Roberts. But one person who is not surprised is James Roberts (no relation to the senator), Davis’ 29-year-old campaign manager.

In January 2013, the young organizer paid me a visit in Washington to explain why Kansas could swing Democratic this year. Over lunch at a Mexican restaurant this week in Lawrence, I asked him how he knew this back then. “We’re a Kassebaum-Dole-Eisenhower state,” Roberts said, referring to two legendary Republican senators and the president from Abilene by way of stressing that Kansas is “a pragmatic, moderate state.”

“We’re not a state of radical experiments,” he said. “Anytime conservatism takes a back seat to raw ideology, Kansans rebuke that idea.”

If Republicans do as well nationwide next Tuesday as many expect, they should pay attention to the reaction unleashed here by Brownback, a former U.S. senator whom Davis regularly accuses of bringing “Washington, D.C.-style politics to Kansas,” which he equates with “hyperpartisan politics.”

Among those who came out to greet Davis here was David Toland, executive director of Thrive Allen County, a social service and economic development organization. He summarized why the decision here matters so much.

“If moderates are starting to push back against the extremism of the Republican Party in Kansas, I cannot believe they won’t be pushing back in other states,” Toland said. “This is a state with a strong conservative tradition that’s in open rebellion against the policies of its own party.”

Conservatism at its finest has been defined by a devotion to moderation. Next week, conservative Kansas may remind the nation that this is still true.

E.J. Dionne’s email address is ejdionne@washpost.com. Twitter: @EJDionne.

U.S. Senate Independent candidate Greg Orman, left, shakes hands with Sen. Pat Roberts following their debate at the KSN television studio Oct. 15, 2014 in Wichita, KS. (Fernando Salazar/Wichita Eagle/MCT)

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Midterm Poll Roundup: Is Crist In Trouble?

Midterm Poll Roundup: Is Crist In Trouble?

As the 2014 midterm elections draw closer, an avalanche of polling data will emerge on the key races that will decide who controls the House of Representatives, the Senate, and statehouses across the country. What follows is a brief summary of some key polls from the week of April 20:

Florida
Florida’s gubernatorial race remains one of the closest in the nation, according to a Mason-Dixon poll released this week.

The poll finds incumbent governor Rick Scott (R) and former governor Charlie Crist (D) deadlocked at 42 percent; 4 percent support Libertarian Adrian Wyllie, and 12 percent are undecided.

Crist has some key underlying advantages; he leads Scott among Hispanic voters by 8 percent, and among women voters by 10 percent. Still, Scott’s strong numbers among men, seniors, and Republicans have him running even with the likely Democratic nominee — which has Crist advisor Steve Schale calling foul.

“I don’t believe that there’s a poll that could show Charlie Crist winning women by 10 points and winning Hispanics and winning the Tampa media market that has the race dead even. I just don’t believe that’s possible,” Schale told the Tampa Bay Times. “All due respect to Mr. Coker [the pollster], he also suggested Mitt Romney was going to win Florida by seven points.”

Despite Schale’s skepticism, however, the Mason-Dixon poll is not much of an outlier. According to TheHuffington Post’spolling average, Crist leads Scott by 4 percent — just outside the Mason-Dixon poll’s +/- 3.8 percent margin of error.

Inaccurate polls may soon be the least of Crist’s concerns, however. On Thursday, Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) told a group of business leaders that he is “tempted” to jump into the race. Were Nelson to run, he would immediately become the favorite to defeat Crist, who was a Republican until 2010, in a Democratic primary.

Colorado
A Quinnipiac Poll released Thursday is the latest in a string of surveys to find that Colorado’s Senate race is too close to call.

The poll finds incumbent senator Mark Udall (D) leading U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner (R), 45 to 44 percent — well within the +/- 2.7 percent margin of error; 8 percent are undecided.

Voters have a relatively positive opinion of Udall — 43 percent view him favorably, while 38 percent view him unfavorably — but they rate him negatively on the key issues in the race. When asked which is the most important issue affecting their voting decision, 15 percent said jobs and the economy, and 14 percent said health care (no other issue registered higher than 5 percent).

Gardner is leading Udall among economy-focused voters, 53 to 40 percent. He holds an even greater 57 to 36 percent lead among voters who are focused on health care.

The campaign is likely to remain close throughout the summer; almost every poll of the race has found it to be a virtual tie.

North Carolina
Tar Heel State Republicans could dodge a Tea Party bullet, according to a SurveyUSA/Civitas poll released Thursday. The survey found state House Speaker Thom Tillis with a 19 percent lead over Dr. Greg Brannon in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate—39 percent of Republican primary voters back Tillis, while 20 percent support Brannon, and 15 percent favor pastor Mark Harris.

Tillis’ 39 percent leaves him right on the cusp of winning the May 6 primary outright; if no candidate garners 40 percent of the vote, however, the top two finishers will face off in a July 15 primary.

Incumbent Democrat Kay Hagan is clearly hoping for such a scenario. Her campaign has been running ads suggesting that Tillis is not a true opponent of Obamacare, in an attempt to push conservative voters away from Tillis — and towards the erratic, gaffe-prone Brannon.

Kansas
Kansas may be one of the most conservative states in the nation, but its voters appear to be running out of patience with Republican governor Sam Brownback.

According to a Rasmussen poll released Monday, Brownback leads Democratic state Rep. Paul Davis by a 47 to 40 percent margin, with 6 percent supporting some other candidate and 7 percent undecided.

While that 7 percent lead falls far short of the 31 percent margin by which Brownback won in 2010, it actually represents an improvement from previous polls of the race. In February, Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling found Davis leading Brownback by 2 percent.

Although Rasmussen, a Republican pollster, shows Brownback holding a slight lead, Kansas Republicans are clearly preparing for the possibility that he could lose in November. This week, Governor Brownback signed a law stipulating that any Medicaid expansion must be explicitly approved by the reliably Republican state legislature — meaning that Kansas will not take part in that key aspect of the Affordable Care Act, even if a Democrat becomes governor.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons