Olathe GOP Picnic - Houston Interested, Wimmer Opportunistically Switches
This Saturday marked the annual Olathe Republican Picnic, an annual gathering of the County's most active and most involved Republican candidates and volunteers.
As always, the Olathe Picnic provided a plethora of interesting political tidbits. This year, though, Olathe Republicans were also delighted by the presence of District Attorney Phill Kline. Though Kline has lost a considerable amount of ground in the realm of public opinion over the last year, he has not lost a single morsel of political fire and inspiration.
Stay Red has caught wind of a few interesting developments over the last few days -
As always, the Olathe Picnic provided a plethora of interesting political tidbits. This year, though, Olathe Republicans were also delighted by the presence of District Attorney Phill Kline. Though Kline has lost a considerable amount of ground in the realm of public opinion over the last year, he has not lost a single morsel of political fire and inspiration.
Stay Red has caught wind of a few interesting developments over the last few days -
- Macey Houston, an African-American female, announced her interest in pursuing Dennis Moore's Congressional seat. Houston has a very diverse background, including professional experience and, most recently, a political appointment from Senator Sam Brownback. Though, Stay Red is encouraged by the interest, there is little doubt that Senator Nick Jordan needs to be the focus of 3rd District Republicans. He is the only candidate to openly discuss the office at this point that has a legitimate shot at doing damage to Moore.
- Ron Wimmer finally sold his soul. Instead of doing the honorable thing and challenging incumbent Julia Lynn in the Republican Primary, Wimmer decided that his personal political ambition was more important than his Party and his former loyalists - Stay Red included. Hapy trails, Ron - we hope you lose...bad.
- Finally, the 100+ attendees were asked to vote for their preferred GOP Presidential Candidate. Of note, the winner was not Sam Brownback; rather, upstart Fred Thompson was the overwhelming crowd favorite, winning with 89 votes to Brownback's five.
Macie (not Macey) was an aide to Senator Sam Brownback...and now works for HUD, I believe. She is excellent.
I don't think Nick will do it.
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I agree. Jordan failed college, is not actively campaigning unless he gets money for it and refuses to state his position on abortion. Maybe he is pro-choice. He also does not address at lot of other issues like social issues. His web site clearly tells us all he cares about is not the people of the congressional district. Instead,he clearly states he is running as a special interest candidate for small business owners. What about the rest of the congressional district electors?
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I am glad there is opposition to Jordan who I do not support. He is a superconservative and the moderates will cross party lines and vote for Moore before they would vote for Jordan. Or at least that is what most mods telling me. Maybe mods will vote for Paul Showen since his campaign is based on his religious beliefs and values. Finally, at least the Libs and Reformers are putting up candidates to challenge both Moore and the GOP candidate (Showen or Jordan). So at least there is an alternative this election cycle to Moore. But hopefully, this will not be Jordan.
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Macie would be a much better candidate than Jordan.
Also, your comments about Democrats are way off. Who ever said that Democrats had to espouse a "liberal" ideology? That makes no more sense than saying all Republicans will must be conservatives. Actually, the Democrats are showing genius by staying away from ideological battles. They are holding the center and building a majority party. It's the GOP that's screwed.
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Actually you have a point -- the Dems are good strategists. Often, though, when in the minority that tends to be unifying. Also, in Kansas, unlike other states, outside of a couple groups, you don't have that wacko crazy liberal contingent you do in other states. They are still liberal, but they don't have to worry about fending off the nuts like you see in the presidential field.
Second, they made a strong move in recruiting so many candidates in JoCo in 2006. Though some were god-awful, it forced several reps to defend territory and not go help out others. This caused two losses, in the end.
The Republicans are not hurt by "moderate Republicans" -- they are more hurt by RINO's -- and there is a difference. Vratil, Allen, etc. -- rinos. Yoder, folks like him -- moderates. If we just had moderates, we'd be unified. But you'll never see conservatives unify with the Vratils.
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You're talking about the Senate Vice President.
Your comments are proof of why conservatives are running our Party into the groud. Keep it up! You will be the only ones left standing.
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Who cares what position he holds? That doesn't mean he's not really a Democrat. The only reason he's a Republican is because that's the party in control in the legislature.
Allen and Vratil have views which are closely aligned with the Democratic Party. Nothing wrong with that, but there isn't anything in their belief system that even makes them "kind of" a Republican. They just are because that's how they get their power, which is what drives them.
Sebelius has a working majority in the Kansas Senate. It depends on the issue, depending on what pull King Vratil has vis-a-vis some other political winds.
But trying to claim Vratil and Allen are actually Republicans is pretty silly. The R label is a means to their liberal ends.
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What is your problem with Vratil and Allen?
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Macie would make a great candidate. People have talked about her as candidate for several years. I would support Macie over Nick Jordan or Chuck Ahner or anybody else who might be running.
Also, she's not Brownback political appointee. She's a Bush political appointee. Only Prez gets to make such appointments. I can promise you that Brownback will never get that chance. Macie is Region VII Director of HUD. She runs four states.
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Aaron Trost will challenge Dennis Moore.
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I see your prediction was absolutely wrong. Thanks for clearly establishing your opinion means nothing. Unless one likes dishonesty.
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The good thing about Moore and his committee membership will ensure special interests he votes for like bankers, lawyers and the drug industry will benefit. Which is to your benefit based on Reagan's trickle down theory.
You should be seeing some kind of benefit sooner or later because of Moore's support for his special interest groups, mainly corporate America.
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Olathe supports Thompson? They haven't seen this yet.
Okay. So Guiliani and Romney and Brownback were pro-choice in the '90s. Here's the skinny on Thompson. Who's left? McCain?
Abortion-Rights Group Says Thompson Once Lobbied for It
By Michael Finnegan The Los Angeles Times 7/6/07
A spokesman for the GOP presidential hopeful says he did no such work. An ex-colleague calls the denial "bizarre."
Fred D. Thompson, who is campaigning for president as an antiabortion Republican, accepted an assignment from a family-planning group to lobby the first Bush White House to ease a controversial abortion restriction, according to a 1991 document and several people familiar with the matter. (snip)
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-thompson7jul07,0,54260.story?coll=la-home-center
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They were all prochoice until the conservatives conquered the GOP in 1994.
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This is pretty desperate by the anti-Thompson dems. The guy has a solid pro-life record and the fact he, 16 years ago, might have not been totally educated on the pro-life issue is not an issue for this pro-lifer. The pro-life movement, perhaps more than any other movement in the country, is full of people who once were not educated on the issue. Thompson is right, in fact, when he talks about changing hearts and minds over time -- and in fact, that strategy has proven correct as more than half the country is pro-life now. Also, sometimes you are just educated on the issue and young children can impact that. Thompson is solid on this -- has he carried the mantle? No, but either did Bush and he's been great for the pro-life movement as a President.
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Ronald Reagan was once prochoice. George HW Bush was once prochoice. Bob Dole was once prochoice. GW Bush was once prochoice. Others: Brownback, even Kline. Who cares? They're all prolife now.
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Some of the most ardent prolife Kansas legislators have had abortions, Susan Wagle and Brenda Landwehr are examples, they've even talked about them on the floor of the House.
The prochoice kooks in the Democratic Party will make a big deal out of Thompson's lobbyist past. So what. No one else cares. People are also willing to look beyond Rudy's less than conservative stand on some issues because they are interested in other issues, too.
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If "no one else" were concerned about Thompson's pro-choice lobbying, his campaign wouldn't have gone to such lengths to deny the statements of so many individuals of different political persuasions and positions who have substantiated the account of his actions in the '90s. There is a written record of what he did, yet claiming it never happened seems like the worst course to take.
If "no one else cares," no one would have gone to such great lengths to defeat the nomination of Harriet Myers to the bench. Her transgression, in the eyes of the hard core, were that she gave a few bucks to Planned Parenthood in Dallas in the early '90s or something like that.
Thompson certainly may have had a conversion about children because of his own experience. After all, he married one who was three years younger than his daughter.
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Funny, I don't remember seeing that as miers transgression. Her transgression was that she was unqualified when compared to the other possiblities out there, and that it was an act of cronyism.
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Cronyism had nothing to do with the rejection of Miers by the hard Right. This is the President, for instance, who chose Dick Cheney as Veep, Alberto Gonzales as Texas Supreme Court Justice, W.H. counsel and then A.G., without conservative objection.
Operation Rescue's Troy Newman, said:
"We must reject the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court of the United States. President Bush promised that he would appoint strong constitutional constructionist to the Supreme Court in the mold of Thomas and Scalia, but Miers is no Thomas or Scalia. We must be given a nominee that will restore the protections of personhood to the pre-born. If your head was about to be crushed, would you want to trust you life to someone who will not state their position on your murder?"
Miers supported gay adoptions. She was pro-choice until 20 or so years ago. Her decades-long boy friend, Nathan Hecht, claims she changed about then. (She contributed to Al Gore in his '88 campaign for the presidential nomination.)
About a 1993 Miers' speech, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council said, "Miss Miers' words are a close paraphrase of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision. Her use of terms like criminalize abortion to characterize the pro-life position and guarantee freedom to describe the pro-choice position should have sounded alarms in the White House during the vetting process. ...This speech raises very troubling questions about Miss Miers' views of constitutional matters."
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You point out two organizations -- that itself did not sink her. If you read National Review and RedState and ConfirmThem, you'd have seen that their main objects were not about abortion, but because of cronyism and lack of qualifications. I think in the end that had more to do with her downfall than OR or FRC's comments.
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Nonsense. This is historical revisionism.
Regarding Miers, Bruce Hausknecht of Focus on the Family said: "Some of (her) statements seemed to be pro abortion, and even as far as saying that there should not be a moral foundation for legislating laws, seemed to be in keeping with a liberal's point of view of the world."
Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America (CWA) said: "...her professional and civic life leaves us questioning whether she chooses to reflect and advance the views of the group she’s with at the moment. Though she attends an Evangelical church known for its pro-life position, during the same time period she advanced radical feminists and organizations that promote agendas that undermine respect for life and family. This drives us to rely upon her actions, her deeds, her words as opposed to the endorsements of those who have worked with and known her.
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July 19, 2007 NY Times
Records Show Ex-Senator’s Work for Family Planning Unit
By JO BECKER
Billing records show that former Senator Fred Thompson spent nearly 20 hours working as a lobbyist on behalf of a group seeking to ease restrictive federal rules on abortion counseling in the 1990s, even though he recently said he did not recall doing any work for the organization.
According to records from Arent Fox, the law firm based in Washington where Mr. Thompson worked part-time from 1991 to 1994, he charged the organization, the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, about $5,000 for work he did in 1991 and 1992. The records show that Mr. Thompson, a probable Republican candidate for president in 2008, spent much of that time in telephone conferences with the president of the group, and on three occasions he reported lobbying administration officials on its behalf.
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I think that Aaron Trost would make a great candidate against Dennis Moore.
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100+? I drove by at 11:30 and there was maybe 20 cars at best in the parking lot.
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Hey, if 94 people (at least) voted in Olathe, then there were at least 94 people there. That means that:
A.) They agree with Bush that a way to support the troops is by car pooling. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=46637
B.) They agree that Al Gore is right about global warming.
C.) Fred Thompson's campaign hired a bus and picked up a bunch of "voters" from the parking lot at Home Depot.
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Most people parked up close, a lot more than in the parking lot just off KC Road. I counted during the speeches and there were about 120.
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There's no battle among Democrats between believers and opportunists...the Democrats have a big open tent, and they're recruiting better candidates.
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Big Open Tent = Believes Nothing
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Maybe. But they win. Isn't that what a political party is supposed to do - win elections. For some reason the Republican Party seems obsessed with doing everything in its power to lose elections. We just handed the center over to Sebelius. We didn't even fight for it ... we just gave it to them. It's not about liberal or conservative. It's about smart and stupid. And, the GOP is stupid.
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No, political parties aren't just about winning. They represent ideas. Our party has not communicated our ideas effectively, which is part of our problem. The other party, in fact, has co-opted our message even though their governing actions are much different. They are definitely better at marketing and media. But i'd rather lose on principle than win on nothing. And as we've seen with approximately 1/3 of the KS Senate Republicans, an R label means nothing.
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I agree - and like Ron Wimmer, I've changed parties to find opportunties where I can make a difference with my vote and my support. Ron Wimmer is a candidate who has backing from voters of both parties, however, showing that he represents ideas from a variety of stake holders, not just from one very narrow minded group (GOP).
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Interesting that you felt it necessary to identify Macey Houston as "an African-American female" but not necessary to identify Ron Wimmer as a "white male."
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Has anyone else heard that Jacob Swisher is going to manage Nick Jordan's campaign? That's Jacob's version, anyway.
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Does anyone know where Scott Schwab has been, he was not at the Republican picnic, and as far as I can tell has done nothing for our party. There have been some real significant events recently and he is no where to be found, talk about a lame duck.
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Has Schwab even got a job yet? This guy is two-headed snake lacking ethics. Here as JOCO GOP chair, he is supposed to be neutral. So what he do. Run for office while not stepping down from the chair. A clear breach of ethics. If you a person lacking ethics, vote for Snake, uhh Schwab.
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I don't know why we are talking about this on an old post but no one has challenged Schwab so he again has a seat to make a fool of himself on the floor once more. His neutrality is a non-issue because the JOCO GOP is worthless, especially under his leadership. You talk about a lack in ethics, how about a complete lack of gray matter...
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I've been in eastern Kansas politics for years and have never heard of Ron Wimmin. Who is he and why should I care?
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Wimmer to run for Senate
By Kevin Selders/The Olathe News
The day before the Fourth of July, Ron Wimmer, former superintendent of the Olathe school district, did something patriotic that he felt led to do.
Wimmer and his wife changed their party affiliations from Republican to Democrat because Wimmer intends to run for the 9th District Kansas Senate seat. The seat is occupied by Republican Julia Lynn, who succeeded Republican Kay O’Connor.
Wimmer wasn’t nominated for the seat in a Republican precinct election last year after O’Connor’s departure, so he changed parties.
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Wimmer was a Johnson county educator for 40 years, a superintendent for the last 14.
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visit wimmerforsenate.com
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I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this post.
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Interesting ideas. We must meet one more times for changing ideas.
Regards.
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