Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Driving down the law: a timeline of Hillary's changing position on licenses for illegals



This video explains it all. First, Hillary signaled support for Gov. Spitzer's plan to reward illegal immigrants with drivers licenses. That was Oct. 16th. Then came the Oct. 30 Democratic debate, where Hillary reiterated her support for Spitzer's plan, saying "it makes a lot of sense." Tim Russert called her out and within seconds, after Dodd expressed his disagreement with the plan and after Russert asked for a show of hands of all those opposed (Hillary did not raise her hand), Hillary backpedaled, protesting that "I just want to add, I did not say that it should be done, but I certainly recognize why Governor Spitzer is trying to do..."

The next day, Clinton
modified her answer--her campaign stated that while she broadly supported the plan in theory, she did not support any specific plan. Her knack for ambiguity continued with a CNN interview with Candy Crowley, leading Crowley to remark, "but you see why people think … that you are not answering the question." And on Nov. 14th, Spitzer withdrew his plan, leading Hillary to do a 360 degree turnabout, announcing that she does not support licenses for illegals and supports Spitzer's decision to withdraw his plan.

Clinton's shocking inconsistency and apparent support for this proposal will hurt her immensely in the general election.

Reminds us of a certain governor who tried unsuccessfuly to push the legislature into accepting her plan to give licenses to illegals (
Sebelius previously supported a plan similar to Spitzer's).

Now that this issue is on the national radar, how will this affect Sebelius' ambitions for senator? Many insiders in the legislature believe she's jockeying for a cabinet position in a Clinton administration, which will provide a springboard for her foray into the 2010 open senate race when Brownback steps down.

Monday, November 05, 2007

KS-2 one of the best-funded house races

Congressional Quarterly released it's ranking of the "Best-Funded House Challengers of 2008" and the list includes 2 Kansas City area races: our own Jim Ryun in KS' 2nd House District and former KC Mayor Kay Barnes challenging Sam Graves in MO's 6th House District.

1) Jim Ryun, R, Kansas’ 2nd, $880,000 (Nancy Boyda, D)
2) Sandy Treadwell, R, NY's 20th, $822,000 (Kirsten Gillibrand, D)
3) Francisco Canseco, R, Texas’ 23rd, $819,000 (Ciro D. Rodriguez, D)
4) Andrew Saul, R, New York’s 19th, $782,000 (John Hall, D)
5) Deborah Honeycutt, R, Georgia’s 13th, $708,000 (David Scott, D)
6) Kay Barnes, D, Missouri’s 6th, $656,000 (Sam Graves, R)
7) Jim Hines, D, Connecticut’s 4th, $618,000 (Christopher Shays, R)
8) Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, R, Texas’ 22nd, $607,000 (Nick Lampson, D)
9) Christine Jennings, D, Florida’s 13th, $592,000 (Vern Buchanan, R)
10) Dan Seals, D, Illinois’ 10th, $567,000 (Mark Steven Kirk, R)

As highlighted above, 6 out of the 10 best-funded challengers are Republicans seeking to gain GOP seats. Sekula-Gibbs seeks to regain Tom Delay's seat, which should be a GOP pickup in '08 considering Republican strength in the 22nd and Lampson's close win. Treadwell and Saul's strong fundraising in NY's 19th and 20th House Districts signal that the NY GOP will fight to regain these slightly-Republican seats in upstate New York won by Democrats in '06. The caveaat for the GOP is Hines' strong fundraising numbers in Connecticut's 4th against Chris Shays. Shays, a GOP moderate and Iraq war backer faced the race of his life in '06 and consistently defended his record--he needs and deserves a lot of help from the RNC and NRCC again in '08 to ensure he holds that seat and prevents the election of a liberal Democrat.

Also, it's worth mentioning that Lynn Jenkins has done exceptionally well--she's raised $420,000 by the end of September and had $361,000 on hand. Clearly, the voters of KS-02 are ready for change and have hand enough of Boyda--both Jenkins and Ryun have the experience and capability to defeat "Bad News Boyda" with her slew of broken campaign promises. CBS has also
highlighted Boyda's hypocrisy, noting her acceptance of a fundraiser with Nancy Pelosi despite previously rejecting financial aid from the Democratic party because she wanted "to run an independent campaign."

Lynn Jenkins has revamped and upgraded her site for the better, in line with Ryun and Boyda's sites. You can check out Jenkin's new website
here.