The 2012 Election: A Kansas Perspective

what did the two thousand twelve election mean for the nation and for kansas and k mcintyre and today on k pr presents a kansas perspective on the election featuring a panel of political scientists from across the state next time i'm katie our concerns we'll hear highlights from this week's election conference at the dole institute of politics but today we go to washburn university in topeka washburn political science professor bob beatty moderated a panel on the two thousand twelve election on november twenty ninth featuring professors from the university of kansas kansas state university emporia state university baker university and wichita state university will hear first from professor baby zombies and three sanders loses mind milo look at the two thousand or twelve election anytime you can mention zombies elections i think is that and here's how it plays into that is most of you i'm sure know the walking dead has become it's incredibly violent the season you'll know that show that was on the show right of course well i'm

sitting there a few weeks ago stand for and be another had been chopped off and seeing if the person is really animated when a one minute commercial for brock obama comes on and i did notice well this is an interesting place for a presidential television ad and i noticed that and then after the election we read about president obama's campaign and their extensive data mining operation in which they targeted obviously certain people who they thought would vote for them and wanted to get them out to vote makes the arty thought they were going to vote for them but make sure they'd get them to vote for them it is a key demographic is eighteen to twenty nine year olds and shockingly they're watching zombie tv shows now this is on amc american movie classics which also has comic book shows and breaking bad and mad men simpson you know sort of the popular with a niche type shows so that that tells you a bit about the

obama campaign than terms of a victory sanders also very quickly one is my mother in law sandra who lives in illinois and she came to visit to see the fantastic topeka high football team how one friday before the election when another game and i guess it wouldn't raise nine courses of a democrat misses and you know what are you doing anything illinois in the baggage russell yes they got me working and i thought oh maybe she's working for a local legislative candidate or something would you don't she said all have re every night i'm making thirty phone calls to wisconsin i said oh interesting for you calling in wisconsin well they're people who signed up for absentee ballots in undermining them and ask you have you fill that end and then a week later i ask did you you know again a follow up in the jail in the us is one mother in law in illinois times that by thousands for wisconsin virginia ohio so clearly use

networks and resources within quote unquote safe states to get those swing states so some of you may have seen the shock and some people's eyes when florida virginia went for obama probably due to some of those some of those efforts the other is you know the name santa float early you know in the campaign she was involved in a controversy involving a religion and their birth control most sorts of things and that is you actually in terms of analyzing option may not be that important but what happened of course was rush limbaugh called her a slut and the quick you know they went to mitt romney the candidate republican party and he said quote those were the words i would have used and obama won unmarried women in the two thousand global action by thirty six points i don't have data on previous elections but that sounds to me like it probably is a record and finally we have hurricane sandy although i slip it in with sand rock

and of course those i think that i think it said that really helped president obama and we're apt to see you in terms of a chris christie the governor new jersey the one of a fascinating things about this election was that rupert murdoch called the governor of new jersey and i asked him for a century were you doing during the aftermath of love of hurricane sandy so that showed so the polarization i think martin ford and many ways unfortunately this entire campaign them there really was bothersome in the midst of all that the governor new jersey have to explain why what would use the one with the president and with this i will hand it over to dr mark peterson who is sen sherrod are what the sides a washer university thank you mark there's a political science blog on the map called the monkey cage

so it's taken from a quote from rachel menken about their government and up one of the articles that was posted yesterday follows a story you've probably heard this analogy before thousand and the amount of money we spend on american political campaigns is atrocious and then they pick a consumer quo on this time around it turns out to be potato chips audio be the cost of the two thousand twelve campaign according to this and this writer on the blog our commands to six billion dollars which is the equivalent of what the potato chip industry has to say gross revenue and hear rihanna got me thinking one of the stories that came out during the political campaign was that both can vote presidential campaigns and a fair number of congressional campaigns or so awash in cash

that there wasn't any more advertising time to purchase there wasn't any place to put any more ads are thinking about the blog and so i thought to myself well we had six billion dollars in campaign spending and a hundred and twenty seven million voters last week when they were having multiple grow specials i worried a bar a family size package or two family so that is a real life and the cost per package about two dollars and twenty nine cents so i thought to myself i wonder but we just simply shirt nineteen bags of potato chips that every voter if we could've cut down on the number of undecideds who were wavering at the very last minute and if they had had that kind of money for that buy potato chips in bulk to get a price reduction and then incentivize people to send in those early votes early ballots by offering them an additional premium two or three back acts and saved us all although it's it's hard to speak about

the misery of it all here in kansas since one of the things that was notable about our campaign was that there was very little advertising on once you happen to be on the perimeter of the state's somewhere i were there was advertising from another market coming in or watching some of the national channels but the other thing that struck me this year was that then i think we finally have discovered that there is such a thing as a wretched excess in campaign spending we really can raise so much money that it just becomes utterly ineffective now having said that was point it is said is right on point now what that kind of money obviously been particularly for the obama campaign was to create probably one of the most amazing and seemed to be most studied ground attacks had ever put together it in a presidential campaign at least in the modern era so those are the things that struck me and it struck me of course was a crawl westerman drang an all out effort we still had fifty

seven and a half percent voter turnout nationally and here in kansas although the number is better than fifty seven and a half percent or by all accounts it's the lowest we've had since said they'd been recording that sort of thing we have about sixty four percent voter turnout here in the state so one wonders abound different set of circumstances if perhaps that we might have had somewhat different turn out a result so those are my brief thought that was dr mark peterson chair of the department of political science at washburn university becker peterson was one of several political science professors who gathered last week for a roundtable discussion on the two thousand twelve election next step a familiar voice when talking about kansas politics university of kansas professor or debt limits first most remarkable three and half weeks after election as many people

going to hear about it actually as i was at the tv station there was there would go button saying was going to run for another term junkies can you talk about the particular shift now free again i'm really aware taco a bit about kansas and united states the big guys are and the note we're we are remarkable national campaign op band a lot an interesting campaign in kansas in this as a lot of money was spent much of it in the primary election odd as we got redder and redder in in in kansas arm and so overall the nine states is training blue dark dark blue overall bit of a powder blue ann dowd i think if you look from nineteen ninety two

through other two dozen twelve election republicans have won the popular vote once in that time did it always been relatively close but the trend line toward are pretty clear of you look at the kansas trend line you go from redish to read read too deeply red high end in kansas are in a few of the air and we'd do it in steps in nineteen eighty four which took a big stump and in two thousand and we took another huge gap and two dozen twelve we finished off jumping off whenever cliff and you can find in kansas so is it refine our assessment of this oh i think they're at you we are living united states are right in the center of the entire state and we do have different political forces but it strikes me that many of the same forces that are pushing the united states

become more generally speaking and some states very dark blue california for example or the same things are pushing kansas rehder that if we look at national trends what we see we see a democratic party is winning less than forty percent of the white vote of thirty years ago if you were we're waiting for each of the white vote you're dead in the water today democrats democratic strategist national can look at forty percent of white voters say but that was so are wide texas the case we know about hispanics certainly the largest group growing in importance are and they're always you're starting to see the impact of hispanics the number one the growing in absolute numbers number two that don't turn out the way the rest of the country but the country that are you know the feeling that those people in chicago

how will be aware of or whether they're working for him for years will figure out a way to increase hispanic turnout as i think we've used turnout this time which no one thought they could an endemic at the very high but not just hispanics asian americans over seventy percent are for the democrat despite the high economic scratch single women won't talk a little bit about that allow a major group that the glbt community which boat well over two to one forty four for obama up so it looks as though this is typical us a typical democratic coalition i'll be here when you peel one grumpy peale promoted to be peeled another group but i say that that one of the things that i noticed that the end of a campaign the last week and super important

last week my wife just about how it it is a very good barometer six that morning were up less and npr making a breakfast that before she got off to be that the best middle school teacher in words and such and you can go to the three officials who run the recall eric you stand here and started you know it's it will be it will be over soon odd and ensuring off our shit sure enough it was odd but i'll what i notice is that the drug were only been there and a balm and ronnie lowenstein i have a plan are i would do this i will do that you listen to obama this gets back to all the hispanics asians whatever you is a week or you say what they were mining those individual vote but they were also saying we will do this together upon a symbol symbolic of course i think there's a real

element of inclusion i don't think that the romney campaign was inclusive and i think that republican kansas because we are remain quite state for the most part is the nation growing but it's still a long way off before they have a major impact the forces that will run you could take advantage of our all the more powerful and in kansas and that sets up ms lessing us senate is real problems for anyone for republican governor not just in kansas but other places they got it with a federal government the fat and so they can choose to cooperate work with it or to not to operate the plague played a purely political basis are perhaps and i would say probably the vast age fredette loomis is a

professor of political science at the university of kansas he was one of seven professors from across the state that gathered last week at washburn university to analyze the two thousand twelve election better and plenty of wichita state university takes a different look at the two thousand twelve election focusing on what happened at the state level i'm going to suggest there are some pink among the pale blue if you go back in or six and await those were generally a blue year it's not necessarily big blue wave but the democrats made made advances nationally in most states can of course has been described in the elections of canna been described as a red way i wanted wanna walk through oh eight tn and twelve

and under a look at it in terms of republicans which i'm sure would surprise some of your republican governorships republicans one twenty three and oh wait twenty nine big jump in tim and one more so they now hope will hold thirty at the beginning the year compared to nineteen in the category one in japan if you look at state legislative chambers there are ninety eight of them in a partisan stance nebraska and we won't tell the rest republicans won forty six of those ninety eight in a way big jump to sixty of those chambers entin and they fell back slightly to fifty seven in the recent

elections republican control of state legislatures in other words controlling both chambers of the state legislature they had fourteen or no wait twenty six big jump almost double in cannes and they increase that to twenty seven as result of the recent like shins that's compared to deny ain't seeing that the democrats control both chambers and that three are split only three are split and then republican controlled state governments nine in all wait jumping to twenty one in tehran jumping to twenty four as a result of these elections and say well those are just the small rural states we have well they happen to

be eleven of the twenty states with him or more electoral votes including arizona for florida georgia indiana michigan ohio north carolina pennsylvania tennessee texas and wisconsin so they're not all wyoming i guess is what you'd say so what really happened is resold of the recent election at the state level or red states got redder and blue states for a bluer republican as i said gain control of state government they jump from twenty one to twenty four states democrats jump from eleven to fourteen states and we now have or will happen january only eleven of those forty nine states that have divided party

control in other words the party is controlled and not uniformly by one party either the legislature's chambers are split or the governorship a split and what is this main and i think we can discuss this for a long time but if you buy into this laboratories of the marker see idea it appears to me we are on to this thing pass forward read half a blueprint and that we will see some creative stuff going on along these red and blue pass across the country at the state level were saying had already have on obamacare some of the first stages of the station there and medicaid will be a huge issue i am i think it's

possible we'll see a lot of percolating going on at the state level including kansas in using these new majority's and in many cases simple majorities i don't have all the exact numbers that i read someone who had assembled them and said that term half the states are going to have super majorities and and those are both republican and democratic majorities with that that very much liked to fight you know we turn to dr joyce trip from kansas state university we're neutral colors i see them as beyond radio can see them wearing blue and red i think and you know i was sitting here thinking about various different issues and and i was very happy to see you know my colleagues have actually stole my notes yet

because i was running out of the points that i want to take this state of kansas looked banks that is just really focus on the state of kansas says opposed to that kansas compared the national love or words or the broader impacts on state legislatures drew was speaking if you look at kansas city look at from outside observers perspective we started off with ninety to one hundred twenty five season are high house going for the republicans in that election well ninety two one hundred twenty five seats are still in republican hands if you look at the senate is start up with thirty two seats out of forty were in republican hands before the election and after the election will fill thirty to forty seats that are there are still republicans and you would take a minute indeed i have for years a neglected to date on state legislator state legislatures and put them in the data sets and mobile hold this thing might not end all happened in the state of kansas with this particular watch

you all know what i'm talkin about there was a great amount of change underneath what appears to be a very a very you know a very much a status quo election there is an enormous amount change it starts you know first of all because of a court order redistricting which means that you are kansas house ninety three years of a hundred twenty five seats are only what fifty one fifty one new faces they're not and then put some retreads adjacent people who have been there before it came back and some other folks but that fifty one new faces there i sat beside me a noted former state legislator out who remain nameless and he said it will be like neil fights on parade in the legislature i couldn't think of a better wages writing and fifty new faces on it this is a group this is a freshman class is going to have a lot of power and enormous amount power and i think it's going to be a little bit i'm

really more unruly than what you would normally think and they might have some issues that they want to pursue in certain ways and i think the leadership may not have as easy a time with this fifth the new legislators as as what they think that some of them were very strongly anti property tax lien want to do a lot of stuff with property tax relief and that's not necessarily same agenda as some of the other individuals who currently occupied offices and state of the game or i should say the couple of people at the seller's going to be a quite a bit of interest in politics going on just in terms of trying to corral these fifteen new faces at the cancer center the course seems like it remains a sign not really right we know that says in there in the primaries that well i guess it's now an endangered species officially that the moderate elephant republican moderate republican alabama that gatsby sees it is now almost running out of any domain by which to run into at least really is

now being hunted rarely by conservative elements in the republican party and they have just about succeeded in making them almost extinct at least as far as those far as representatives and in the state legislature and so after it's all said and done you know the kansas legislature the state senate is going to be very conservative and have a lot of new faces also but most of them are tied to that the interest that they dominate and in particular are our associate with the governor's office says those think that we're really going to see i think an interesting juxtaposition compared to what we see in the past usually the senate was granted that will work against them at any great change typically conservative change and now i'm for sure the senate subcommittee that great will work anymore and i think you're going to see that the governor is going to be able to push through his legislative agenda in a very meaningful way and that and he's got a village he was a lot of different gangs in the state legislature this year so what are the policy

implications of all this i think it means even though we have kind of some unruly appetites in their house it all means we're going to see a very strong pendulum swing towards the right fit is going to be a strong pendulum swing towards right this means this set we determine the level of taxation that we went head first and then we determine the services and we right size government in order to meet that level of taxation so dual way of thinking was that hey listen we go out we determine what services we maybe then determine the level of taxation that we need your provider's services not anymore we also see different policy changes we see privatization and competition and profit leading to efficiency and this will be the basic ideas that will be dominating the way in which we make policies that's very different right it was our is oriented towards government providing various services largely through a civil service class that is working

cool hand in craps and not necessarily as i asked them in the no creatures what we always like to see but it was it was a different way of operating we're also gonna see government power that when it is used is really used in the state of kansas more to enforce a conservative vision of the social worker so it's not as if government power will be put in our back pocket and not use rather government power we use to select a situation's was an oriented towards a more conservative social worker also we're going to see something that political scientist been crying for three years as we have been begging the united states to move towards a responsible party model airplane orders wasn't party model is the idea we put forth a plan for him and everybody who is elected leader with pledges that they won't force that platform well we have it folks i happy

i actually met you never know what you're going to get about wishing for the old basically to be a tweet about and in the short term i think you're going to see some other major things going on ahead but that i think kansas politics is it's going to fundamentally change the lenny as a summer of quick questions a wearable the moderates gone retired beaten and burned can the democrats become a viable alternative not probably anybody's lifetime in this room it's a way to really think about where kansas politics fits within the national politics you do you think about this that really we talked about blues days become a blue or red states become a renter and i think that's true and i think what we're trying to unstick exist in the united states today is towards sexual assault that is towards where we have certain regions of the country that tend to be dominated by one particular at a logical framework and it in

no other regions dominated by other bigger india what rhymes as determined largely by the makeup of that protect the population and that's kind of their return to what we head in a previous era critically right for the song or right after joe is stroke teaches political science at kansas state university if you're just joining us you're listening to a panel discussion on the two thousand twelve elections held at washburn university in topeka this event featured professors from across kansas giving a national and state perspective on last month's election i'm kate mcintyre you're listening to k pr presents on kansas public radio we're take a n u lawrence cayenne aids emporia k a n d old three junction city and k a n to houston and on the web a k pr back at you that edu

up next michael smith assistant professor of political science and emporia state university and i'm kind of a fan of the big gaff arm because our our campaigns are so heavily scripted are are so heavily controlled you know it got people in the media that follow the candidates and their stump speeches say that essentially that again it's basically repeat the same stump speech at every appearance and and the people media just get worn censors quickly hear the same speech over and over that the whole message what consultants are are trained to do if they have that can make it just a few points and his drive those points and don't take the risk of one off that message because you might make one of those infamous gas and then i read that the definition of a gaff once in the new republic it's always stuck with me that a gaff is when a politician accidentally says what he or she really does it i didn't think there is that we send troops in long island and there were couple that stood out in this selection i want to talk about i think a

very relevant to kansas the first one of course is mitt romney's forty seven percent moment odd that the comment about forty seven percent of the the american people expecting them to take care of them and so forth the saudis say they're not going to vote for him and he apologize for that profusely and maybe he doesn't factor get saying that he doesn't believe that i tend to think though that there was a reason why he said it and the reason i said is probably because he thinks many of his supporters and the people that he was speaking to about fundraising get together did agree with that and i i heard a couple my students after it happened in the back of class talking to each other they didn't know i could hear them say you know it's so what governor romney says certain politically incorrect but it is basically true i am i don't agree that personally but i think that many republicans did odd that that many of president obama's supporters are looking to benefit from government programs at someone else's expense the other prominent critic kenneth years without another i guess you could call the gap recourse bill reilly the fox news commentators comments

on election night along the same lines that there's a proportion of another people like to present in this country that the wannabe taking care of him a whopping government president was given to and so the reason i'm bringing this out this is not just to pick on republicans although that is fun to do out but they're remembering this object is to make a point which is that in kansas and in many red state taxes in many other states as well but that the one we care about most right now kansas i'm conservatives are the majority can't just didn't go with these national trends and the challenge now is if that's what they really believe that the government is too big and that we should not seek office on the basis of promising to give things to voters how was that going to look in terms of public policy may give me an example a mule skinner is the congressman from what we call the big first it's your great big

district central and western kansas not including wichita goes from emporia it goes around wichita that goes all the way to the colorado he's as conservative because they can't is an outspoken tea party leader any represents a district that ranks very very high nation when interns received the farm subsidies samuels campus constituents want things from government they want things and dimples you know he ran for he defeated a more moderate republican and he it is is his core philosophy and i believe him to take him at his word that he believes that we need to move away from that whole idea of government so what we know about the armenian other example until ground from k state and placed a really really really wants a practical and that an agricultural research facility for a place in an aging one that on long island new york big new infusion of bell roll dollars into

kansas are one of the reasons that redistricting got all bound up in this state is because the state legislature the predominantly republican state legislature did not want to move to manhattan kansas into the big first district which if you look at the maps in the population just everything out that was the logical thing to do to rebalance population the decision what manhattan in the big first in europe you're pretty much good to go as far as read this really to be with you ah and so here we have his republican state legislature and red state fighting saying it you know kansas was the last week in america to read this trip that was done by the courts will for congressional district california has the story and they're drawn by citizens commissions citizens commissions in california drew fifty three districts faster than the state legislature in kansas could draw for and i couldn't do it all and was done by the court was done the thumb some states already have their primaries when kansas have new districts and and there were a couple of different reasons but i really think the

manhattan things the biggest one on the congressional not necessarily an end so we have this idea that that i guess what i would want to say back to mitt romney and bill o'reilly is you know what guys you're half right democrats and who want things from government the only thing you forgot to mention is that republicans to whether the farm subsidies whether the research facilities weathered the highways no canvas is a recipient state in terms of highways we owe a big thanks to people new jersey in these other more depth about which states are subsidizing highways across kansas the less densely populated parts of the state where local taxes couldn't possibly pay for our highway system we have in this state and and so i think these conservatives are word i think it did with sam brownback summit in heels camps and the whole crew at their word that they wanna move away from this model of getting elected based on promising

things to people who want things from gaza ah but that housed they're going to work in terms of policy and they're going to work in a state where the entire state budget is down they buy to fix the k twelve school based funding formula and medicaid if you want to reduce state spending and sooner or later you have to go to those do you think there isn't enough money in anything else to do it any other way in the federal budget you've got national defense social security medicare interest on the national debt you can eliminate everything else the federal government that absolutely everything the road ballads and we would still be running against that's how much those things down in the federal budget not gonna probably default on them that although we talk about a little last summer but anderson imagine that pretty much off the dna national defense social security and medicare before we make government smaller we have to cut those things and cut them deeply the math doesn't work any

other way so in a country where the republicans are still a majority in the house and we have this fiscal cliff stuff going on right now in as they were republicans and conservative a clear winner this year but the post election question for me is our eye you don't you might end up politics of promising to give peak things did people who want things were on the table you what are we doing in terms of farm subsidies which has traditionally been one of the ways it can says members of congress run for reelection i fought for bigger farm subsidies what what we don't have that we can influence peddling for more federal spending even in a state where there's been this ratification the idea that nominees to be and spends too much money what we gonna do about that highway money kansas gets from other states and so forth and so i think that willy's ideological conservatives first of all at least here in kansas congratulations and second of all the big question as one of the house that was i don't look

like in terms of policy what kind of tough choices are are they going to face and how they can face michael smith teaches political science at emporia state university the last panel a step the washburn university election roundtable is when melander from baker university in baldwin melander chairs the department of mass media and visual arts she is also a guest commentator radio i asked to go last because i'm not a political scientist and i wanted my colleagues to be able to lay out the nuts and bolts of the election results for you they would call me an outlier girl social scientists and so i'm not one of them i'm gonna talk about media coverage of the election and amid a little bit different with fashionable to criticize the media and talk about what the media have done wrong i want to say that during the recent election at least for the kansas media covering the elections in kansas i think that particularly

in the primary the media across the state did a very nice job and i think that voters will we're well served and could have been well informed if they were engaging in the media with the media i think this is true and the larger markets radio and television and newspapers i also think this was true i read a number of newspaper stories throughout the primary season and smile for newspapers and small towns that had contested primary elections but where the state senate races were getting a moderate republican against a conservative republican and in these cases what impressed me about the media coverage was that the crime policy positions of the candidates were laid out very clearly but also the possible implications for the election going nowhere neither we're also made clear and i

mean there was there was a context as historical context social context what is going to mean for the voters what will be the ultimate impact as an added that impressed me then we move to the general election and is perfectly understandable there was a lot less urgency in the coverage the stakes didn't seem to be quite as high the outcomes were more certain there weren't that many races and it had the same level of trauma as those primary races where a moderate republican was pitted against a conservative there were a couple of concerns that a rose for me as i was that was monitoring and media coverage during both the primary and the general election well the first is that the diminishing number of journalists who are working in the state is having an impact on the amount of information that's voters have available to them to make

informed decisions when they go to the polls our it's not just the number the diminishing number of full time journalists who are stationed at the statehouse is also showing up in the number of journalists were employed by small town newspapers and it seemed to me as i was reading stories time and looking or patterns in the end the coverage that there were probably many many times during the primary and the general election campaigns that candidates some of them incumbents were out making speeches and talking to people on there was not a journalist and they are and so there was a lot of conversation that unless you showed up at the fairgrounds to hear the speech you were going to find in news coverage in that does concern me and this means their stories that would have been covered ten years ago might not be covered today now i

would say he goes of the liver and he didn't have a pretty good bit of the capital journal takes pretty good care of you but when you get outside of the major markets are not sure that that other than with the high mary with that case a second trend that i believe there is watching and thus caused me some concern is that once upon a time there was absolutely essential for candidates to speak to the traditional media to see that granting interviews and being quoted in the newspaper appearing on the evening news was essential to communicating with voters and i don't believe that's true anymore i think that there are some candidates in the state of kansas says they were showing up in the primaries in particular who have made a decision that that's not necessary in order for them to get their information out to the voters they need to go

to the polls to vote for them but they don't necessarily have to grant an interview and engage with a journalist in order to reach the public and part of this is because the political parties the candidates the handlers whoever it is that it's giving candidates advice have gotten develop alternative means to me to have to communicate with voters identified the demographic that is their base they want to go vote and so they might use a milk distribution ways to get information to voters and the problem with that is that it leaves those people are on this traditionalist or part of the bass out of the conversation that we think is so important for democracy so i'm going to stop that and turn it back to the political scientists women thank you for your your comments by the mormons are a couple things one is over all about third congresswoman lynn

jenkins made itself were quite available as an incumbent to be fair to debates in a number of forms or whether that's not always the case though some incumbents or candidates who feel their head gamble i would say that they don't need to do that so that i'm glad that lynn jenkins able to do that but one thing i notice is wow how about the impact of presidential debates i mean just whenever one of course starts making other lap them for no worry we have the first obama romney debate which segways to my comment that there is no commission on gubernatorial debates in the senate kansas and as someone who has been involved with that sort of thing for a number of years they probably should be i think it's something for president and some room for governor as the voters should demand is a minimum what we expect it to your point and earth not

having sort of an expectation allows a candidate to not have to debate and also to pick to be honest pick their the moderators which that can happen as well so president obama didn't seem like you wanted the peppers debate that he had to as an expectation by the american people and he suffered for and it really forced him to get on his game and next several debates and we had a i think one of the greatest series of debates in the history of american politics all all for what to call him the ryan biden debate so put that one side but the haddock three presidential debate it's we're really marvelous in many different ways i think and i think we can says no reason we can't do that at the state level but what it takes is that actually the people to demand and that will go to question you've been listening to an election roundtable at washburn university featuring professors from several different kansas universities but analysts now take

questions from the audience this first one on the high number of judicial vacancies and whether obama will have better luck on this turn filling vacancies on the us court of appeals for the tenth circuit the tenth circuit court of appeals which has jurisdiction over kansas colorado oklahoma new mexico wyoming and utah crowe he has two vacancies on its twelve member band as well as several vacancies at the district court level yeah i think i i think that they built that they'll get that that they the tenth circuit i feel i am and the district court philip and i think the view would they're waiting to see if obama winner the term legacies it this easy it's very difficult i don't think that if you start if you pay attention to the filibuster rules because one of the changes in the filibuster may be some deal that ought to court on nominations may come under some

different different rules are there may be no formal agreement to move to move confirmation shoot through the system are more more quits more quickly so it you know it i think there are that that did they will be filled are that concert circuit seat has always been akin to see probably stake in the city but i would like to get some kind of blame to the obama administration which has not been aggressive are all important for candidates ford and they're really pushing to move them and i think it is a generalized and thirty seconds to obama engaging with the congress generally he doesn't like engaging with the congress there are these politicians there ah and it's hard to know really is hard is hard particularly in this year are but it's something he's just got to do and so off i don't think it helps protect libyans got eric holder as attorney general who is you in a sense of many ways in many ways like obama

and standoff ish and so i do think that that that a short of getting a something a personality transplant would probably not going to get our i think he just doesn't look obama are something i've gotta do another work with accomplished more annoyances easy but the job he loves second question is one minute and says yes sir the next question is about our state's history and how kansas went from being a progressive state to a conservative one what i think that's true and i think there are for most the twentieth century ended the progressive era was a republican here i mean it was it was started by a series of progressive republican governors and in my view they set a pattern that influence politics for the balance of the century

obviously that have started coming undone in it for the conservative whether it's free market or evangelical wings won the house majority they couldn't win a statewide election and then brown and governor brownback wanted to depart from their community the tax issue is the best issue to understand that the state operated on the ballots tax system for eighty years and brownback says police and in order to do that anymore and it looks like he's got this legislative support to make that a reality even with moderates and so were we we're taken a different path and it's a conscious

vision on the part of brownback and his allies that was plenty from wichita state university this is bob beatty from washburn now if i'm not mistaken i think president obama launched his reelection campaign pretty much by coming to kansas also automated talk about a republican who was a part of a different that he is you know you're different type of republican from that era our way in the back where question the next question was about the dependence of rural areas on federal and state dollars and why does areas tend to vote republican in spite of their need for government spending here to say it is one of those you reconcile global issues that read or it seems that and more current war on whether it's so security medicare medicaid certainly educational finance

and this is gonna have a a new story written about it i mean we had moderate republicans hammered with obamacare a hand it's a mock symbolism smart politics what everyone the current it it worked and worked again in india some folks some really able folk set dennis mckinney who were to prevail in a republican area and i go back to a cousin of mine in kingman county i mean they just despised law just as feisty woman and sold dennis mckinney was running against obama he was running against obamacare and jeans your heart and wichita was running against obama and obamacare and it's it's clever

politics i guess that i don't know when we'll have some reconciliation i'm a part of it is the end long tradition of american political culture of individualism up against reality and a lot of people aren't happy that they are taking these things and so part of their frustration is to vote against it while taking it because of they don't like it now the other second part could be it's an entitlement i paid into it it's different those are possibilities and just one last point in the news you i know when it's going to come to egypt come to head and all come to have with the world's longest four letter word that's consolidation they're so that's that's when that's when everything that's when all of this will come home you know it'll happen at first very episodic lee and we are seeing that the school districts that and pretty soon it will

happen in more summit will be very rational as is the right thing to do and those local local districts will do it anyway and so summits the call for but i think a certain point in time you know it'll have a momentum all of its own it'll be overwhelming and i'm not quite sure when exactly that will be i guess it will depend upon the physical nature of government but i would say the consolidation may be where the rubber meets the road i think i think it comes in twenty fourteen it i think you start to see these are in twenty fourteen are and what we're at war and this is the big experiment the mayor of obamacare sky of experiment is taxed the fish issue is a reworked them up with with immediate results look at look at the first of the legislative research numbers then you have the revenue these are crazy people out there that the saints people in the state are air and they add their show mr klein my guess is if that becomes i talk to or correct that that cry maybe even

steeper as people move move into different move to shelter their taxes and they're in various ways are well come to me that as a retired person forty elsie runs his retirement through el sayed i made that maybe a bad interpretation but he's a priest overcome which is a good thing in the accounting the top in a sense this is a good part of having federalist that i do think there's more sexually some are with settlers in the nineteen eighteen fifties or at seventy is raking nineties when the federal government did almost nothing is very different than federalism in two thousand twelve are win all these hospitals all depend absolutely so i think i think there are we we will have and that's why we have elections and in this the state hasn't elected a republican and democratic senator says like in thirty two selected a ton of democratic governor not because we're so damn democratic but because

governors are held accountable and i think the state will hold governor brownback accountable in the legislature accountable are you that doesn't mean that there's going to be any you know overwhelming change it may not be bought you get to get the regular opportunity to say wait a minute this great to kind of school funding is a working a proper taxes are going up our not getting the medical services we need off and you are responsible you've been listening to a post election roundtable held at washburn university school of law on november twenty ninth two thousand twelve this event was moderated by washburn political science professor bob beatty and featured burdette loomis from the university of kansas joe a stroke from kansas state university and plenty from wichita state university michael smith from emporia state university when melander from baker university and mark peterson chair of the political science

department at washburn do join us next time on k pr presents one will hear highlights from this weeks post election conference held at the dole institute of politics at the university of kansas that event featured the top campaign strategist for both president obama and republican presidential candidate mitt romney comes out of the maersk alabama you know that protesting and i think we saw that time governor romney having gone through over twenty the primary debates later we have time to build up our organization that kind of test that we had time to analyze things that were working things on the protest rally region of waterloo station oh you're out and make adjustments we did not feel that the victory was to be spending a lot of time on his ideas go back to the ancient animal origins of the edwards campaign by the ilo or you know these are things that the dole institute of politics post election conference

on k pr present eight o'clock next sunday evening and j mcintyre kbr prisons is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas