Interesting Washington Post story; looks like Brownback could be in some trouble: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-kansas-gov-brownbacks-reelection-race-is-case-study-in-republican-party-shift/2014/07/30/3192d86c-1420-11e4-8936-26932bcfd6ed_story.html?wpisrc=nl_pmpol
Looks more like screwed to me. I always like to see Senators be governors before trying to run for President. Brownback has proved in spades that he can’t do the job. So we can now cross him off the list.
I’d like to see what Rubio, Paul, and Ryan have got before they try to run the federal government as well. All of them are eminently electable in their states. Pence, Jindal, and Kasich have done it, they can too.
Brownback isn’t screwed, Kansas is. Either they re-elect Brownback and condemn themselves to financial ruin, or they elect a Democrat with a hostile legislature who will be unable to douse the flames ignited by Brownback.
Not that I have anything against Kansans, but I would almost root for Brownback in order to show the end result of Teaism.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
H. L. Mencken
“Brownback” is the new “Santorum”!
At least Kansas’ millionaires and top earners are happy with Brownback’s policies.
The Kansas legislature isn’t all that friendly to Brownback and the Democrats picked the perfect candidate if that’s the concern: he’s a party leader who has experience reaching across the aisle.
Brownback was reelected: RealClearPolitics - Election 2014 - Kansas Governor - Brownback vs. Davis
I’m kind of relieved, for Missouri’s sake. There are some pushing for similar tax cuts in MO (and can almost certainly override Nixon’s veto now), and I want the full effects to be seen in Kansas first, so at least nobody can say “we didn’t know what would happen”.
sigh What’s the matter with Kansas?
All right Kansas, you made your bed now lie in it. Let’s see how this hard right Republican government works out for you.
I’m mystified by that result. Brownback has been a horrible governor. I’m actually kinda annoyed by that result, because bad GOP officeholders damage us. It’s better to just lose those elections than keep the bad ones in power.
[shrug] He’s a Republican governor who has applied the RW/starve-the-beast/Tea Party ideology consistently in his policies, with dismal results well known, but apparently that does not trouble most Kansans enough to make them vote for a Dem instead.
I’d call it more classic Reagan supply side ideology than Tea Party, although frankly it’s hard to divine exactly what Tea Party ideology is when you try to get into details.
There are many Republican governors who take more of a Coolidge-type approach to fiscal conservatism due to the balanced budget laws of their states. Cut spending, cut taxes, by equal amounts. But also when you cut spending you have to do it intelligently. Brownback’s approach has not been intelligent, it’s as if he read up on Reagan, assumed that everything just worked, and has stuck to it without changing course. Except that Reagan actually did change course when he saw that his ideas weren’t working as well as he’d hoped.
Thomas Frank, author of the book by that name, analyzes the election results.
And why should it? Just look at that article by Thomas Frank you linked to.
Frank, and every other liberal pundit I know, wants us to be appalled by the fact that the state’s bond rating fell. It fell just one spot, from AAA to AA+, though Frank doesn’t tell us this. He also doesn’t tell us that the Kansas state bond rating is equal to or better than that of most states governed by Democrats.
Then he bemoans cuts in education spending and other areas. Of course most folks take it for granted that tax cuts and spending cuts should go together; that’s part of the point. Frank offers no evidence that students in public schools in Kansas are doing any worse, so why would any voter in Kansas worry about the spending cuts?
What Frank and his fellow travelers seem to miss is that most voters like tax cuts because most voters like being allowed to keep more of their own money. This is so obvious that you’d have to be a New York Times columnist not to understand it.
Of course people are going to want to keep more of their money if that’s the only consideration. But people do support taxation if they feel the money is spent wisely. Here in Pennsylvania Republican Governor Tom Corbett was easily defeated after enacting the GOP regime. Education cuts were particularly unpopular. This is what liberals expect, rational analysis of events and appropriate electoral results.
Unfortunately, here racism is the conservatives’ ugly ally. As Paul Rosenberg exaggerates with his excellent Salon Article, “It is all still about race”
The GOP cleverly stigmatizes social services as being for THOSE PEOPLE. This tactic is more effective where people are more likely to blame victims. So Brownback is able to narrowly hang on while Corbett is not even though it seems to us on the left that it’s clearly in the interest of almost everyone to reject both.
A reelected Gov. Brownback now faces a tsunami of red ink: HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost
I heard about that.
It shouldn’t be much of a problem, though. All Brownback has to do is cut taxes, and soon they’ll have surplus revenue.