Jenkins campaign refuses to take stand

The Lynn Jenkins campaign has attacked Nancy Boyda for her vote yesterday on a comprimise "Drill baby, drill!" bill.

But wait, I thought Lynn wanted to drill? She would support this bill too then, right?

“I cannot tell you specifically the bill she would or would not have voted for since Lynn's not in Congress, but what I sent you before is the criteria she would follow,” said Josh Hersh in an e-mail to the Lawrence Journal-World.

Oh, I see. You're willing to criticize others for voting for the bill, but not willing to say you would've voted against it. Brilliant.

Hersh did say that Jenkins would vote for a similar bill, as long as it was a compromise.

“Lynn would have voted for a compromise, bipartisan bill that was crafted by Republicans and Democrats. She would not have supported a political gimmick that's been declared dead on arrival by a Democrat senator.”

But this bill IS a compromise!

The original bill called for allowing drilling 100 miles off the coast. Republicans wanted 25, so the bill was amended to 50. If this isn't compromise, I don't know what is.

New poll shows Boyda wins, drilling loses

As seen on Boyda Bloc and Swing State Project, a Survey USA poll commissioned by the Washington D.C. newspaper Roll Call shows Nancy Boyda beating Lynn Jenkins, CPA 50-43.

We'd like to dig a little deeper into some of the cross tabs of this poll.

1) The poll posed the question "If two candidates were running for Congress, and one says that offshore drilling is the best way to solve America's energy problems ... and the other says that America needs to identify and promote alternative sources of energy ... which candidate would you vote for?" and 56% of the people chose the candidate who wanted to identify and promote alternative resources. Once again, Kansas Republicans are on the wrong side of an issue.

2) McCain is beating Obama pretty handily, but not keeping pace even with George Bush's 2004 performance. We've said on this blog before, in all likelihood McCain will win Kansas, but if he wins it with 50-55%, that 5-10% drop could send people like Jim Slattery and Donald Betts to Washington.

3) 46% of voters have a favorable opinion of Nancy Boyda compared to only 36% of voters who have a favorable opinion of Lynn Jenkins. A staggering 45% of voters have either a neutral opinion of Lynn Jenkins or they just flat out don't know who the hell she is. Given the fact that she has been elected to statewide office twice and just won a pretty contested and well-covered primary, this ain't so good for Jenky.

4) Remember how Lynn Jenkins is so "moderate" and Nancy Boyda is so "liberal"? Well, among self-identified moderates, Nancy Boyda is winning 47%-42%. Conservatives side with Lynn 85% of the time. Only 28% of moderates have a favorable opinion of Lynn Jenkins. Don't worry Lynn, you've got George Bush coming to town...

5) The poll shows Kansans have a 36% approval rating of George W Bush, slightly higher than the national average, but pretty abysmal for a "deep red" state. Bush's approval rating among moderates? 24%.

6) Though the Ryun/Jenkins primary didn't feature the kind of fireworks many thought it would, it is clear there have been some lingering affects. Jenkins garners the support of a mere 70% of Republicans, compared to 88% of Democrats supporting Nancy Boyda.

In the end, it's hard to find any positives for Jenkins in this poll. Yes, she's only 7% down, but with this data unless she changes her strategy some (see Bush, drilling) you have to think she's pretty much at her ceiling. Her best hope is that some of the right-wingers will come to realize she is one of them, and Bush swooping in should help in that regard, but Jim Ryun can tell you how that worked for him in 2006.

The poll was conducted August 19-21 and includes 620 likely voters. It has a margin of error of +/- 4%

A Republican and a lie, two peas in a pod

Homer Simpson once said, "It takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen."

In this case, we refuse to take part in the Kansas Republican Party's latest mistruth.

In a Harris News story this morning, the Boyda camp rightly called the GOP's claims that Boyda voted for "the largest tax increase in history" "malarkey." (See Boyda Bloc's explanation).

The fact of the matter is, Boyda supports several aspects of the Bush tax cuts -- the ones targeted at the middle class, where they should be. The problem is most of the actual revenue is lost from the tax cuts on the uber-wealthy, which a Boyda spokesman even said she would support if the Republicans could find a responsible way to fund them (they can't, don't worry!)

So what smoking gun did the poster who goes by the name "Kansas Republican Party" (didn't Christian Morgan blast so-called "anonymous" blog posters awhile back? Just asking.)

An alleged quote from Boyda's MySpace page two years ago, a page that the GOP knows full-well was not run by the campaign or anyone associated with it.

If ever you needed proof that the KS GOP was run by adolescents, this is it.

"But, but, but...you said on your MySpace page!"

Something else worth noting in the Harris piece. Morgan claims that McCain will be a boon for the victor of the Ryun/Jenkins snoozefest.

Uh, perhaps you didn't see the poll commissioned by Sen. Roberts. McCain is polling under 50% in Kansas. There go those facts again.