Turns out GOP Gov. Sam Brownback’s ridiculous austerity program is incredibly unpopular in Kansas a year after being re-elected on a platform of massive tax cuts magically creating revenues. Hoocoodanode, right?
A new poll from the Docking Institute of Public Affairs at Fort Hays State University shows only 18 percent of Kansans are satisfied with Gov. Sam Brownback’s performance in office, and most (61 percent) think his signature tax policies have either been a “failure” or a “tremendous failure.”
The Fall 2015 “Kansas Speaks” survey also showed a large majority (61 percent) favor expanding Medicaid. Another 84 percent oppose requiring colleges and universities to allow firearms on campus, and 82 percent are skeptical that voter fraud is a significant problem in Kansas.
The survey of 638 Kansas adults was conducted Sept. 14 through Oct. 5, with a margin of error of 3.9 percent.
The survey asked respondents to indicate whether they were very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, neutral, somewhat dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with a list of elected officials. Overall, only 18 percent said they were either somewhat or very satisfied with Brownback.
That question is slightly different from the standard polling question, which asks people whether they “approve” or “disapprove” of a person’s performance in office. It wasn’t immediately clear how much impact that subtle difference in wording may have had on the results. One thing that was clear, though: Brownback’s “satisfaction rating” among Kansans was 10 points lower than President Barack Obama’s.
Brownback is losing to Obama in a blood red state. That’s how bad his austerity regime has been for Kansans, and in fact his platform planks of opposing Medicaid expansion, putting guns on university campuses, and voter suppression laws have been complete losers for the guy.
I’d argue that Brownback has actually replaced Jindal as the most hated governor in the US right now, especially with Jindal’s term up in January. Kansas on the other hand has three more years of Brownbackonomics to go, and I’m pretty sure his massive tax hike on cigarettes and beer in order to make up for his ever-deepening budget hole may put him in single digits by this time next year.
But once again, Kansas, you brought this on yourself. You knew exactly what Brownback was going to do, he followed through, and you’re all surprised now that your state is a hellhole?
How about “stop voting Republican” guys?
SFAW
Tough to have any compassion for a state that keeps voting to fuck itself over, knowingly.
And we all know the popular definition of insanity. Looks like Kansas is trying to out-crazy SoCar. (“Too big to be an asylum, too small to be a country.”)
GregB
Shall we make an entry into the Urban Dictionary for Brownbacking?
James K. Polk, Esq.
Kansas Republicans: “LOL, no.”
Cervantes
@James K. Polk, Esq.:
That’s about the size of it.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
What? I’d rather be bankrupt and sick than vote with liberals!
/Republican voter
Did they ever in their wildest dreams think the brainwashing would be this effective?
NotMax
Left on the cutting room floor.
Dorothy: Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.
Toto: Thank God.
SFAW
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
“Bleeding head good, healed head bad!”
Shakezula
I suspect some percentage of that disappointment stems from the fact that the policies didn’t wipe out minorities and leave white people standing.
But at least they aren’t morons about making campuses gun free for all zones.
1weirdTrick
Give supply-side and trickle-down a fair shake. It’s doing wonders for the Kansas economy. Other factors, like fear of gay marriage and gun control, are to blame. Also, Benghazi.
Ruviana
@SFAW: Bleeding head good, bleeding heart bad also too.
gene108
When 35% of the people vote, all you need to do is keep 18% satisfied and you can keep on winning.
Anoniminous
Kansas. Another state full of Know-Nothing Conservative religious whack-jobs. Well they got what they voted for so fuck ’em.
Keith G
Speaking of a ridiculous austerity program showing signs of being incredibly unpopular:
Y’all would do well to follow this story in detail. It is fantastic political and social science.
SFAW
@1weirdTrick:
You forgot “Thanks, Obama!”
SFAW
@Ruviana:
Heretic. That’s not part of “Bob” ‘s teachings.
feebog
It’s not going to get any better. Brownback drove off a bunch of moderate Republicans and replaced them with true believers. These people are unable to admit their economic theories have failed. Brownback will be out of office in three years and they will replace him with another fundie wackadoodle who will drive the state even further into the pit.
scav
They may no longer hold the title of the geographically flattest state, but by golly! damed of they don’t do their tootinest to win and hold on to the status of economically flatlined state.
Mike J
For the guy who is in office?
Until Republicans lose elections, there’s no such thing as an unpopular policy.
bluehill
@James K. Polk, Esq.:
Exactly. I’d rather live in a !@#%hole than vote for a liberal! IIRC Brownback wasn’t too popular in 2014, but he still won reelection. How’s that trickle down working ya?
Zinsky
My brother works with the state economist in Kansas on occasion. I’ll bet he’s a cheery guy! That’s gotta be like being the navigator on the Titanic.
slag
Here’s what I want to happen. I want every media outlet (including you, NPR) who hyped this imbecile, his “plan”, and his fellow Randroids to give equal time to a detailed retrospective on how it’s going today. What promised outcomes have been achieved? What promised outcomes haven’t? All that.
At the time, this plan was pitched (ad nauseam) as a paragon of tax policy. A genius idea that the rest of us could learn from. So let’s learn.
Bobby Thomson
Cry me a fucking river. If your masculinity is so tied up in voting Republican you deserve Brownback and Krazy Kris Kobach.
RSA
“Kansas needs money… Where should we look? Rich people? Nah… I know: sinners.”
Frankensteinbeck
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
If Lee Atwater is to be believed, their plan was to not brainwash anybody, just keep up with the latest way people were comfortable saying ‘I hate blacks, and will do what I can to hurt them.’
Ocotillo
We can all laugh about it but those fools would re-elect him if they had another election this November.
japa21
@slag: Except, if such a report was actually allowed to see the light of day, it would be criticized for being a political attack. Besides, such plans take years to actually succeed and they haven’t been given sufficient time yet.
The world will soon see what geniuses Brownback and his minions are. And if the utopia promised doesn’t materialize, that doesn’t mean the thought process behind it was faulty, just that somehow or other those darn liberal hippies sabotaged it. Re-elect us and we will get it right, just as soon as we get those darn liberal hippies out of here.
Ryan
Hard to choose which to go with.
– The beatings will continue until morale improves.
– Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed.
– The problem is that we didn’t elect a True Conservative, we elected a moderate.
Maybe all of the above.
Soonergrunt
And Oklahoma isn’t far behind them, and they deserve whatever happens to them.
Docg
The far right governance in Kansas, my state, is relatively new. Of the last twelve Ks. governors, six were Republicans and six Democrats. Having lived elsewhere for thirty years, I don’ t fully understand the current infestation, but I will bet the next governor will be a Democrat or a less than bat shit crazy candidate of some other ilk. Even rabid conservatives despise the guy.
scav
Or, we could just be reading the polls backward. Maybe true Kansans know in the very soul that government doesn’t work, never provides services or benefits and politicians are inevitably inept and cruel, so they’ve put in a superior effort to prove these bedrock assumptions correct. This is their hard-fought and hard-won Nirvana, and the polls reflect this success. If they can get satisfaction to single digits, they’ll run ads crowing over all the other states about manifesting physically the party’s ideals. The bleeding is their stigmata, signs of a superior and purer faith.
Barbara
They don’t want a governor they want a magician and until they decide that is not a realistic possibility they will keep voting for the same kind of candidate who promises that they can eat all the ice cream they want and still lose weight. The first go round with the charlatan in chief could perhaps be excused, but the second time, no way, they already KNEW it was a fantasy and they elected him again anyway. I’m sorry for the realists out there who are not voting for Brownbeck or his clownish enablers.
gratuitous
@Mike J: That’s it 100%. Until Republicans start paying a price at the ballot box, they will continue their ruinous policies. And every ballot victory will be touted as confirmation that they’re carrying out the will of the people.
There doesn’t seem to be a counterargument to that, so Kansas’ standard of living just keeps sliding down the banister. You’ll know they’ve hit bottom when Bangladesh holds a Kansas Aid event.
NorthLeft12
@Zinsky:
with the advance knowledge that you are going to hit an iceberg and sink.
I guess people get paid to do a job, and this economist must either be a complete moron, delusional, or just does not give a rat’s ass about what is happening to his state and the vast majority of the citizens. I suppose it is possible that he cares and just feels he is fulfilling his duties by observing/predicting/documenting the ongoing train wreck.
Not sure how a professional can continue to work in a situation where his advice/knowledge is being ignored or suppressed by his employers………Oh, yeah……the money thing.
Laertes
“You order shit, you eat shit.”
Just Some Fuckhead
I’m not sure Brownback was re-elected.
http://americablog.com/2015/08/mathematician-actual-voter-fraud-kansas-republicans.html
gene108
@japa21:
Right-wingers do think like this.
So did the Soviets in the 1920’s and 1930’s, when they were putting in radical changes and when those changes weren’t working they pinned it on “wreckers”, who were not doing their jobs and demanded the implementation of Communism just needed more time.
It is scary the parallels between modern right-wingers and fascists / Communists of yore.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Soonergrunt:
We’ll see ’bout that. Here in ‘Misery, the only thing keeping us from out-Kansasing Kansas is our moderate Republican, Jay Nixon-D, governor. He’s term-limited out next year and I don’t care what any of the local pundits say, our next governor will be a Brownbackian nut job.
Then you’ll see us out-Kansas Kansas. Either that or the batshit insane legislators will have a real cow when they find out what voters think when they try to raise some of the lowest sin taxes in the country in order to cover the expected deficits when their Randian economic nirvana fails to materialize. It’ll be an interesting dilemma to observe.
NorthLeft12
@Docg: I met a Kansas couple on a Danube River cruise this past summer, and though I tried to avoid any political discussions I was stunned one dinner when they both went off on rants about how awful Brownback was and is. They described themselves as lifelong Republicans. Bob Dole Republicans. He told me that he does not recognize his party anymore.
I never asked him if he still voted Republican. They were a very nice couple and I did not want to embarrass or offend them.
Bobby Thomson
@Docg: nope. Rabid conservatives claimed not to like him in 2014, too. The state has changed a lot in the last 30 years, from when Bob Dole was easily its more conservative senator (and Nancy Landon Kassebaum was an honest to goodness moderate) to where Dole’s views are apostasy. Get out while you still can.
Anonymous At Work
Question: Was there data on approval ratings for participants’ state Legislator and state Senator? Doesn’t do much good if they disapprove of Brownback but return the legislators that voted lock-step with his proposals.
sherparick
@GregB: Yep. But they majority of Kansans feel such tribal affinity the Evangelical church & Fox Nation that a majority voted for Brownback, Kolbach, Pompeo, Huelskamp, Yoder, & Jenkins in 2014. I expect much of Brownback’s unpopoularity comes from wingnuts, for whom Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. The bad results only mean that Brownback made RHINO “compromises” on spending, taxes, & punishing the poor & public employees. I am looking forward to Kolbach’s Koch approved platform in 2018.
Bobby Thomson
@Just Some Fuckhead: could be, but with a fascist like Kobach in charge of the records we’ll never know.
Gretchen
Brownback was 8 points behind the Democratic challenger the week before the election, but somehow won anyway. A Wichita State statistician thinks the voting machines were manipulated to add votes to the Republican side, and is suing to audit the tapes. The Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, who was also running in that election and was also expected to lose, is fighting this tooth and nail. I think cheating is the most likely explanation for that election’s outcome, but of course it’s more fun for all of you to just assume that all of us who live here are stupid.
geg6
Fuck Kansas. They voted for this asshole twice. Say what you want about PA, but we threw the GOP cretin we had out after one term.
WereBear
The Horseshoe Theory is how such movements actually go so far they meet at the edges.
Bobby Thomson
@geg6: only because of Penn State. And we’re losing our AG as payback.
Bobby Thomson
@Gretchen: I’ve lived there. I know who lives there now. Many of you are doing the FSM’s work. Many more are quite stupid, bless their hearts. Any way, my sympathies.
ETA: my contempt is directed at those who hate Brownback but hate Democrats more for stupid reasons.
SatanicPanic
@RSA: Man I am sick of them pushing taxes onto people who just want a beer. Beyond some extra tax to deal with externalities like societal costs of drunk drivers, alcohol should be taxed like every other damn thing I buy at the supermarket.
Just Some Fuckhead
I agree with Gretchen. The polling never matched the election outcome and Brownback’s approval post-election is worse than it was going in.
Something stinks.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Bobby Thomson:
This. I call these “embarrassed Republicans”. I know quite a few in the Lansing/Leavenworth area. These are not members of the American Taliban, they’re all typically retired ex-military officers who’ve never voted for a Dem in their life. They’re smart, educated, believe in science, etc., but they’ll never vote for a Dem. Why? I still can’t figure it out.
Now, they’ll get offended if you try to label them, they fall back on the usual “both sides do it” crap and dissemble over how they vote. In the case of somebody like Brownback, they probably didn’t vote for him but of course didn’t vote for his Dem opponent either.
Docg
@Bobby Thomson: There is a lot of crazy here.
SatanicPanic
@geg6:
GWB won two terms and I don’t feel like any of us deserved that
rikyrah
they re-elected him.
bottom line.
accept what happens when you re-elect someone like him.
Punchy
This would lead to lots of dead silence on air. They’d have to fill it with World Series ticket information instead.
rikyrah
@SatanicPanic:
He didn’t win two terms. He was ‘selected’ for one….
SatanicPanic
@rikyrah: fair enough, but he did win the second.
sherparick
@NorthLeft12: Kansas is the Koch’s home base. And they believe that the more & more they turn it into a feudal estate, they obey & comply with Greg Mankiw’s “just dessert” theory & that from the Koch’s point of view Brad is “under paid & oppressed” by the moocher Mike, who is probably a dim bulb to begin with. http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/i-get-what-you-get-in-ten-years-in-two.html
D58826
@Gretchen:
Isn’t he the guy that has made a career out of the non-existent in-person voter fraud. It’s a lot easier to ‘stuff the ballot box’ if you control the vballot box.
Paul in KY
@Docg: We shall see…
Paul in KY
@gene108: Been reading a good biography of Stalin & when he 1st had de-facto complete power (1925 or thereabouts),he pursued a policy of taking extreme positions (facts be damned) in order to use those positions to get rid of the ‘realists’ (would be rivals who took more legitimate positions on those issues). The nomenclatura (those left) would then have to twist themselves in logic pretzels to agree with his wacky ideas (which he started completely cynically & not caring if they would actually work or not or were correct, etc.).
SFAW
@SatanicPanic:
Sure, if you assume Ken Blackwell wasn’t screwing with things.
Paul in KY
@NorthLeft12: He’d have probably lied & said they didn’t vote for Brownback.
Paul in KY
@Gretchen: If there was blatant cheating & y’all can’t get it figured out/brought up for all to see…then maybe you are stupid.
Paul in KY
@D58826: Good Stalin quote: ‘Those who vote, decide nothing. Those who count the votes, decide everything’.
Patrick
@SatanicPanic:
When half the people don’t bother to vote, surely they have to bear some responsibility?
kindness
Meh…..Kansasans re-elected Brownback. While I get they now have overwhelming buyer’s remorse I would feel more empathy for them if they might have made that decision 1 year ago and voted differently.
I hate to say it but the citizens of Kansas (as well as Wisconsin, Louisiana, etc) can go fuck themselves. They have only themselves to blame.
les
@Gretchen:
As a Kansan with a daughter in education at K-State, who was thinking of quitting before degree ’cause under b’back she might have a better chance of being hired, I find it damn hard to disagree.
DemJayhawks
I enjoy how much my ostensible comrades are willing to toss my entire state into the bonfire for the benefit of a little schadenfreude.
As the other Kansans have alluded to, this used to be a functioning state. What you see writ large in the U.S. House already happened in our state legislature. Our “moderate” Republicans were primaried away years ago; the loons truly run the show now. Unfortunately, the “moderate” Republican electorate in our state is just now waking up to what that actually means in practice. Compare the 2010 gubernatorial election to the results of the 2014 gubernatorial election. People, especially “moderate” Republicans, are taking notice, and perhaps in 2018, assuming Kobach hasn’t stripped away our right to vote, we can get it right.
les
Hey, he thinks he found three people who voted twice–once in Ks, once in CO–which totally justifies taking thousands off the rolls for not having the right ID. Which would have no impact on the “fraud” he “discovered.”
Tyro
All Republicans have to do in the next election is warn the public that if spending goes back up, some of the dollars will go towards black people and Kansas City, and they’ll decide that they are better of suffering.
Kansas made an attempt at turning itself into one of those parasite states that serve as a haven for some favored industry, like South Dakota does with credit card companies and like Delaware does with incorporation and tolls. But in this case, Kansas failed to identify any competitive advantage it could offer anyone. Manufacturers that haven’t already fled the US can find more than enough desperate cheap labor and low taxes in the Deep South. IT companies aren’t going to pick up and leave their current locations and their talent pool to move to Kansas just for slightly lower taxes and schools that current employees don’t want to send their kids to. Retirees have the climate of FL and AZ they can go to. What did Brownback expect to happen?
Ohio Mom
@SFAW: Once upon a time, in the very late 1970’s and early 1980’s, Ken Blackwell was a Cincinnati City Councilman. He was a member of the Charter Party, Cincinnati’s idiosyncratic “good government” third party, which leans left believe it or not.
Back in those days, I voted for him once or twice; Charterites and Democrats were usually united on issues and approaches. When Blackwell set his eyes on higher office, he became a Republican. And that was the end of my support for him.
Anyway, all this is to say that I’ve been an observer of Ken Blackwell for a long time and I’ve never had any doubt there was some funny business under his watch the second time GW “won” the presidency.
Patricia Kayden
People who live in democracies get the government they deserve. Elections have consequences so shrugs about what’s going on in Kansas.
Brachiator
@slag:
Paul in KY
@Tyro: Brownback doesn’t care at all if that happened or didn’t happen. His job is to get rid of any FDRism in the state (pensions, unions, social safety net, minimum wages, etc.).
ruemara
I hate to throw quotes but Randi Rhodes said it best, “it it’s too close, they can steal”. You could have tossed out Brownback and his congress of horrors. Work on voter turnout, take over the local dem party. Organize. But, it didn’t happen. The national party doesn’t have to live in Kansas; they won’t have yourassion, your desire. You have to focus on saving yourself.
Belafon
@Gretchen: Gretchen, I deal with this kind of shit all the time here in Texas, and you know what, both Texas and Kansas deserve it. Our leaders are fuckheads, and we keep electing them. Now the “we” does not include you and me but our states still deserve the shit they are getting, and the people who either elect the shitheads or don’t bother to vote deserve the ridicule. You know you’re not one of them. I know I’m not one of them, which allows me to blame all those people I know are doing it without getting defensive myself.
thefax
I’d say the problem here is less ‘stop voting Republican’ and more ‘Vote, Democrats!’ The number of KS Democrats I know who didn’t vote in 2014 is staggering. I honestly think KS could be a sleeper blue state in a cycle or two if the party gets its act together here.
Keith G
Watching a live stream of debate in the House of Lords.
The fight against austerity.
BTW..a link to watch
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2015/oct/26/tax-credit-cuts-debate-hancock-tells-peers-not-to-trigger-constitutional-crisis-politics-live
Steve in the ATL
@SatanicPanic:
No, that was fraudulent too. Ken Blackwell and his shenanigans.
Linnaeus
@DemJayhawks:
Yeah, it’s really disappointing to read here.
SFAW
@thefax:
And I think the Knicks could win the Stanley Cup, but I’m not placing any money on it just yet.
Paul in KY
@thefax: You can’t expect the party to hold your hand, send a car for you, point you to your precinct, etc.
You just go vote for the Democrat, whomever the fuck it is. It’s not rocket science.
joel hanes
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
but they’ll never vote for a Dem. Why? I still can’t figure it out.
Probably one of these: take your pick for individuals:
“Welfare” for “those people”, mostly. You know, those “urban” people.
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Citizenship path for undocumented immigrants
Gun control laws; Brady bill
McGovern
The Sheriff is a ni-clang
Abortion
Trade unions
Dolchstosslegende about VietNam and Iraq and Aghanistan
And now, the Dems are probably going to nominate a woman!
rikyrah
@Gretchen:
would not be surprised…at all.
to see them doing the perp walk….
would be fabulous.
The Moar You Know
They can’t.
FDRLincoln
Well, I live in Kansas, in Lawrence, a very liberal town. Most of the rest of the state hates us and the legislature occasionally passes policies that seem specifically designed to attack Lawrence and the University of Kansas.
As for Brownback, two days before the election the word out of Topeka was that his own people expected him to lose. What happened?
***Underfunded Dems.
***Massive flood of Koch money at the last moment
***Mobilization of conservative evangelicals
It is worth noting that he went from being elected with something like 65 percent of the vote to being re-elected by a 50-46-4 margin, the 4 going to the Libertarian…I’m assuming many disgruntled GOPers voted for the Libertarian guy because they couldn’t bring themselves to vote D.
It should also be noted that Brownback’s policies are destroying the schools and hospitals in rural Kansas, the areas he won most strongly.
Republican voters and apathetic voters get what they deserve. Unfortunately they are dragging the rest of us down with them.
My oldest son is 17 and we are encouraging him to get his education in another state. Our youngest is 10 and is autistic. Lawrence has good programs for him, so we are likely staying here. We can’t afford to move across the country to a blue state.
joel hanes
@Steve in the ATL:
that was fraudulent too. Ken Blackwell and his shenanigans.
Bingo.
As Michael Connell wanted to testify, but somehow could not.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/republican-it-guru-dies-in-plane-crash/
joel hanes
@FDRLincoln:
***Underfunded Dems.
***Mobilization of conservative evangelicals
When, when, when, will the national Dems remember that a tree without roots cannot survive, and turn their attention to serious state and local organizing?
Answering myself: when those national Dems who quietly prefer the status quo to actual liberal governance no longer control the purse strings — I’m looking at you DSW and Israel and Hoyer and Schumer.
Alex S.
I can imagine that Kobach did indeed cheat, but to be honest, 2014 was bad for Democrats everywhere. Mark Warner underperformed his polling by 15-20% or something like that. There was an increasing enthusiasm gap right before the election. So I think it’s possible the polling was simply off.
SFAW
@DemJayhawks:
A couple of thoughts (so to speak) occur to me:
1) The schadenfreude, as you call it, is I think primarily aimed at the people who voted for Brownback expecting he would do anything different. He’s not a Bob McDonnell, who tried to hide his severe right-wing views when he ran in VA – Brownback has been pretty straightforward about his beatings-will-continue-until-morale-improves desires, and it was made clear in 2014 that he would continue it. And now those supporters are shocked, SHOCKED? As the saying goes, cry me a fucking river.
2) “Moderate” Republicans tried, in 2014, to point out that Brownback’s policies were failures. We can see how effective that was.
3) The vote fraud (as opposed to “voter fraud”) that may have taken place SHOULD be getting some traction, but won’t with any KS elected official. I don’t know if the DoJ can start investigating – I don’t know under what laws or jurisdictional justification they could do that – but some enterprising souls in KS should push that as hard as they can. If the DoJ finds that there was widespread tampering, it would certainly be a cudgel that the DNC could use during the mid-terms. Of course, that would require a DNC chair other than DWS – but if the Mets can make it to the World Series this year, then perhaps the power brokers in the DNC can convince DWS to “pursue other opportunities” or perhaps “spend more time with her family.”
OK, so it was more than a couple.
brettvk
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
My job is ringing up tobacco purchases in a semi-wholesale establishment not too far north of the AR-MO border, and I hear a lot of exclamations about the low tax on cigarettes here (even though we include a city tax with the state’s cut). As a nonsmoker I feel that the toll should be higher for both fiscal and health reasons, but I hope it doesn’t come about like the KS template. But down here in the bloodred Ozarks I’m expecting that shitstain Kinder will be the next governor, and we’ll probably outdo KS — the lege thinks that’s a challenge, not a warning.
Nellie
@Just Some Fuckhead: The vote was surprising after the polling and Kobach has done everything he can to suppress voters. If you are interested in knocking Kansas, go ahead. But there is a chance that this statistician might uncover some of the methods of election fraud that are used here and in other states. Mockery makes you feel good, but even better, do something. Feel free to contribute to the Go Fund Me to help with her lawsuit – – because what happens here, happens elsewhere. Yes, it should never have been close, but the Koch headquarters are here and Brownback is their boy. (I’m the rare person who moved To Kansas this past year – complicated family reasons. And really, Lawrence is not a typical Kansas town. Still, the damage that this fool and his cronies are doing is immense.)
Bill
@rikyrah: Not to get all wonky, but a little more than 46% of the Kansas electorate voted for Davis. The amount of “Kansas is getting what it deserves” in this thread is a little disconcerting given that nearly half of Kansas didn’t vote for Brownback.
As a resident of Walkerstan I sympathize with that 46%.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2014/governor/ks/kansas_governor_brownback_vs_davis-4146.html
thefax
@Paul in KY: Not sure how you read that I was expecting the party to hold my hand or whatnot. I meant that KS democrats need to get their act together because in 2014 we were under-resourced despite two winnable elections, and a little bit of visibility might counter the perception that Ds can never win here.
Tyro
@Bill: As a resident of Walkerstan I sympathize with that 46%.
Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Even without Brownback, the Kansas government is stacked top to bottom with devotees of this right wing agitprop.
Bill
@Tyro:
And yet the numbers pretty starkly show that almost half the state is suffering under policies they neither wanted or voted for. But fuck it, let’s write them off because “horseshoes and hand grenades….”
catclub
@Bill:
By electorate you mean ‘of those who voted’ – which is fair.
Registered voters in Kansas is about 1.74M, so about half of those (869000) voted in 2014 governor’s election.
State Population is 2.9M
sharl
@Nellie: You can never be completely certain with JSF, but if you look at his #49 comment (“something stinks”), I think he is sincere about thinking that something was fishy about that election.
Jay C
@Keith G:
Well, as the saying goes, you live long enough, you might see anything…
A speech against austerity, and in favor of the common people in the freakin’ British House of Lords???
True, it’s a bishop talking (a remnant of the ancient Second Estate), but still…
Bill
@catclub: Right, so as is the case in every state, a whole bunch of people didn’t vote. If your point is that they have some responsibility for the mess their in, I absolutely agree.
But there are still hundreds of thousands engaged Kansas voters who didn’t vote for Brownback. (About 400,000 by your numbers) Sorry, but I can’t get onboard with telling those people: “You got what you deserve.” For what? Having shitty neighbors? Not convincing enough people to vote like they did?
Paul in KY
@thefax: I didn’t mean you, per se. I meant those KS Democrats that didn’t vote. Doesn’t matter who’s running, how magnetic they are, etc.Just get the hell to the polls & vote.
geg6
@SatanicPanic:
Those of us who didn’t vote for him didn’t deserve what happened, but anyone who did deserved whatever happened to them and I have not an ounce of sympathy for anything they’ve suffered. Not a bit. I worked my ass off to keep the guy out of office and to try to kick him out in 2004. I lost friends and made enemies of neighbors over it all. All of that made me more determined in 2008 and 2012.
I feel the same way about Kansans. Those who didn’t vote for him should redouble their efforts and quit politely accepting their crazy neighbors’ stupidity and call them out for it. And those who did vote for that cretin, Brownback, can just go DIAF as far as I care. They get what they begged for and they’ll get it good and hard.
mclaren
@WereBear:
That’s actually Hegel’s principle of opposites. Social or political movements pushed to their extreme turn into the opposite of what they were when they started. Then Hegel says that the now-inverted political movement clashes with its opposite to produce a synthesis of the two. That’s dialectical historicism, where you get thesis (original political movement), antithesis (the movement pushed so far it inverts) and synthesis (a new political movement generated by the pressure between the two opposing philosophies).
mclaren
So what’s the general consensus here?
Everyone pretty much agrees that at the national level, Republicans are toast because of demographics.
So what about the continued dominance of Repubs at the state level? Will their toxic policies trigger a mass backlash at the state level within the next few years? Or is there a huge disconnect twixt the national and state level politics as far as Republican dominance goes?
ET
Here is why I don’t feel overly bad for most Kansans – they had a chance to rid themselves of him but they didn’t.
agorabum
@SFAW: I believe 48% of the electorate voted against Brownback. So don’t forget there are plenty of good folks who have opposed him.
But I’m hopeful these bad Republican govs will help amp up the dissatisfaction with the Republican party – its the only way to get a November landslide…
Robert M.
As a recent (going on a year and half now) transplant to Kansas, Brownback’s election results and the poll under discussion are both consistent with a moderate but steady decline for support of his policies among Republican voters.
I think Brownback is immensely lucky that his re-election coincided with a midterm year with an incumbent Democratic president. And I think there’s a good chance his replacement will be a Democrat, although there’s very little chance the lege will flip.
SFAW
@agorabum:
And 54 percent voted against Paul Davis. In other words, the “voted against” numbers don’t mean much.
The Dems who voted against Brownback get a relative pass. It’s the assholes who voted for him, and are now complaining that he’s being a big meanie, that I have no problem telling to go fuck themselves. Had he run a stealth campaign re: what he was going to do, I would temper my remarks. But he didn’t, and those who are complaining now because he did exactly what he said (or strongly hinted) he would do deserve nothing but scorn, plus a couple dozen dope-slaps with steel gauntlets.
priscianus jr
@Gretchen: ” I think cheating is the most likely explanation for that election’s outcome, but of course it’s more fun for all of you to just assume that all of us who live here are stupid. ”
Yes, but that would be a conspiracy theory, and we all know there are no conspiracies in American politics. LOL.