I don’t know if Kathleen Sebelius will run for U.S. Senate against Pat Roberts or not, but I hope that she does. Most people probably think it’s a crazy idea. A Democrat hasn’t represented Kansas in the Senate since the 1930’s. It’s an extremely conservative state where President Obama and the Affordable Care Act are unpopular. It would require Sebelius to raise a lot of money in a very short period of time. It would subject her to even more abuse than she was subjected to in Washington DC. And, apparently, she has a very young grandson who she wants to spend time with.
Yet, if she were to run, it would help the Democratic Party across the board. Why not have the chief implementer of ObamaCare running on her record of insuring somewhere around 10 million people? What the hell has Sen. Pat Roberts accomplished in the last six years? I’ll tell you what. Nada. Bupkis. Squat.
Roberts doesn’t even have a permanent residence in Kansas. He’s like Dick Lugar on steroids in terms of being out of touch with his home state.
I am no expert in Kansas politics, but I do know that the reason that Sebelius was a successful governor there is because there is a real split in the Republican Party between the Eisenhower branch of the party and the (now) Sam Brownback branch. And Gov. Brownback basically purged the Eisenhower branch during his first term in office.
There are no shortage of alienated Republicans in Kansas who voted for Sebelius twice and would be willing to vote for her again. To get an idea of what I am talking about, Sebelius and Roberts and their families are close friends.
If Sebelius were to run, it would a signal that there is nothing to be defensive about with the president’s health care law. It’s a positive.
Plus, Sen. Roberts is a weak incumbent who has only generic support. If he’s going to win reelection, it will only be because of his party affiliation and not because he is personally popular or particularly well-liked in Kansas. Ever since he saw his colleagues Bob Bennett of Utah and Dick Lugar of Indiana lose in primary contests, Roberts been has voting like he’s Attila the Hun. There’s plenty of room in the center to attack Roberts.
I hope that Sebelius makes a go of it. Even if she loses, she’ll encourage everyone else while providing them with some needed cover.
And Gov. Brownback basically purged the Eisenhower branch during his first term in office.
With the backing of the elephant in the room! The Koch Brothers!! Kansas is where their company is headquartered.
Kansas is also one of the states that refused to expand Medicaid; I hope she has at it.
What the hell has Sen. Pat Roberts accomplished in the last six years? I’ll tell you what. Nada. Bupkis. Squat.
For most of the pig people, that is an accomplishment.
The Federal Gub’nintTM is the big, bad boogieman coming to take away their guns and bibles to replace them with invitations to gay marriage ceremonies and the Koran (no, their worldview is not in any way coherent; it’s the defining characteristic of a conservative).
That said, every time a Republican goes unchallenged is a time when the voters who aren’t pig people don’t have an option. Allow this enough times and seats seem impossible to challenge simply because there hasn’t been a choice for so long that people just stay home.
It would be nice to see Democrats challenge incumbents, even in Blood-of-innocents red districts, just to gauge what the electorate is thinking, and to prepare for the next election.
Sometimes you have to wonder if they aren’t all buddy-buddy when the camera isn’t pointed at them, as they laugh at the divide-and-conquer job they’ve pulled off.
I want her to run.
go go go!!
Kansas, where Grand Dragons celebrate Passover by shooting Jews.
Seriously, can she run for anything after the thoroughly botched healthcare.gov development and her total indifference to it until rollout day? I wouldn’t vote for her for dogcatcher.
Temporary glitch != “thorough botch”. It is abundantly clear at this point that the implementation of the law is a great success. Progressives should not be recycling the right’s sky-is-falling narrative.
Thorough botch! This is not based on Fox News but on a two day interview between Bill Press and a White House intern, a Software Engineer, brought in to clean up the mess. The details he gave made me want to puke! Those worthless unprofessional scum should never have been let loose near a computer.
The sky is not falling. The law is a success, but the web site software had to be substantially re-written to work. It was a bloated mess that should have been shot in the head, instead of rewarded with billions of dollars. In a month of so, they did the rewrite (much harder that starting from scratch) while the contractor (thief is more like it) had what? Three years? And Sibelius sleep walked throughout it.
Sorry, I still call BS. Here we are a few short months after the sky was falling and we’ve hit and perhaps blasted right though anticipated enrollment targets. That doesn’t happen when something has been “thoroughly botched”. Anybody familiar with the Massachusetts experience was aware that most of the enrollment was going to occur near the deadline regardless, so there was never any reason to panic over problems in October.
Didn’t you read? It was fixed. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t botched. If your mechanic spills oil all over your front seats and the dealer replaces the seats, does that mean the mechanic didn’t botch changing your oil? I’ll shout it so you hear. THE CONTRACTOR FUCKED UP BIG TOIME BY HIRING INCOMPETENTS. THE WHITE HOUSE HAD TO STEP IN AND RESCUE THE WEB SITE. SEBELIUS SHOULD HAVE PREVENTED THAT. In fact, I think Obama has fired her for that and rightly so.
We’re talking about a Senate seat, and the alternative is a Republican. Fortunately the job does not entail management of any large, complex, time-critical technology projects. If she can win it, she’ll be fine.
Oh yeah. Like Roland Burris, if she just votes as Harry and Dick tell her, shell be fine. I’m talking on the effect on the election. Don’t doubt5 that the Republicans will make it an issue. And this is Kansas, cloud cuckoo land.
I agree. She has nothing to lose and a lot to gain for the party. True, she made some mistakes, but she also navigated a really negative GOP smear campaign and ultimately won. She is tough, politically smart and persistent. Run!
As an Ohioan I can’t help but have a soft spot for the daughter of one of Ohio’s best governors ever.
Well, she’s not running. Too bad.