Monday, April 16, 2007

KS 2nd District Race makes national news

The Politico, DC's hottest and newest newspaper devoted soley to politics, is chronicling the efforts of the GOP to regain the 2nd District seat from Nancy Boyda in the story "GOP could face struggle to regain ground, uproot Democrats in Kansas."

Now, I don't agree with John Kraushaar and David Mark that it will be a struggle. Boyda has made a series of missteps and if any seat is going to swing back to the Republicans in '08, it will be Boyda's seat. Both Jim Ryun and Lynn Jenkins are established campaigners and have won numerous elections, and either of them can beat Boyda. Ryun's loss was more of a result of his lack of campaigning in the district and his lack of being in the district in general, coupled with the strong anti-Bush, anti-war tide that swept through the state. Memo to Ryun: bringing Bush to campaign for you in the final days was probably not a strategically sound move--that may have what clinched Boyda's slim, SLIM margin of victory.

I mean, c'mon. Ryun won by 10% just two years earlier--you can't tell me that the vote against him was "personal." It was the national anti-Bush, anti-Republican tide, along with Ryun's complacency--he did not believe he could lose, so he didn't invest the time and money he should have. Also, if you look at the vote totals, voter turnout was down sharply in almost every county in the 2nd District when compared to 2004, and the number of registered Republicans who showed up to vote was also down significantly--more than is normal for a midterm election.

If Hillary is on the ballot in '08, GOPers will turn out in droves, and if Giuliani is our nominee, there will be an obvious coattails effect that will aid GOP candidates down the ballot.

Also, my prediction: the NRCC won't get involved in the Jenkins/Ryun primary, nor should they. Either way, we'll have a great nominee to go up against Boyda. Jenkins is also a fighter
and she'd give Boyda a tough race. And Ryun won't take anything for granted this time.

2 comments:

Jason said...

while you are generally correct...the NRCC will not want someone like jim ryun running for a seat that they need back so badlly....so they'll go in hard for Jenkins.

Ryun will win the primary.

and lose

the people of the 2nd are republicans..and didn't vote against jim because of the president..they still..at least kind of...like the president. they voted against jim because he didn't tell them why they should vote for him, only to why they should vote against nancy

Anonymous said...

Ryun lost to Boyda because he was worthless in Washington. He has apparently lost to Jenkins for the same reason. I think Boyda will retain her seat as she has been an effective representative.