Window on the West
by Mary Rupert
Has the U.S. Senate race been highjacked by the national fight over control of the Senate?
Undoubtedly it has been, but whether this race is any more important than others throughout the country will only be proven with the results on election night.
At the national level, analysts have sensed a weakness in the U.S. Senate race in Kansas, a vulnerability of Sen. Pat Roberts, and a chance to break the long-standing Republican hold on the Senate seat in Kansas. Currently, Democrats hold 53 seats and Republicans, 45 seats, in the Senate, with independents holding two seats.
This week, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that Democrat Chad Taylor is allowed to drop out of the Senate race. A new fight is brewing over whether Democrats have to appoint a replacement. If not, some analysts think that Greg Orman, the independent candidate, has a better chance of beating Roberts.
What we are really witnessing are the struggles of the two parties to try to control this election from areas that are usually outside the normal election process.
Just as settlers from outside the state flooded into Kansas in the pre-Civil War days to make sure it was a free state or slave state, dollars from outside the state, from both sides of the political spectrum, are now flooding into Kansas to make sure it has either a Democrat or Republican in the Senate. In a campaign like this, the biggest winner is probably the television stations that run ads for the candidates.
And yes, there is something vaguely familiar about a vacant U.S. Senate Democratic slot on the ballot. It reminds me of the vacant Unified Government Commission seat that has gone unfilled for more than a year. The balance of power on the commission might have changed if that seat had been filled.
Kansas voters may be the losers this year, not so much because Taylor pulled out of the race, but because whatever interests our state’s voters have may be overshadowed by this national spotlight on how many Republicans and Democrats are in the Senate. Voters here need to put the spotlight back on the issues that they care about.
Don’t blame the messenger
On another topic, I do not believe in blaming the messenger for any of the events that occurred in Ferguson, Mo., or any other events.
There were recently a couple of fights at Washington High School in Kansas City, Kan., in which the posting of a cell phone video by a television news station was questioned. Some people may believe that posting the video causes further fights. I do not agree with that. It is a logical fallacy, “Post hoc, ergo propter hoc,” or “After this, because of this.”
People tend to blame anything and everything when something goes wrong, but really, the fights are caused by the people who are participating in them.
I believe the parents and people of the community need to know what is going on in their community, in order to better address it. Unless the person taking the cell phone video in some way was a participant in this disturbance, then I believe the video is not a cause of further disturbances.
If some students are reacting to what they see, that sends a message to the parents that they need to teach the students how to resist impulsive behavior, and perhaps even get some anger management training in place for them.
The students will be faced with reacting to other messages in their lives, such as ads for items they want but can’t afford, or pitches from politicians, and they should learn now how to deal with these, too.
To reach Mary Rupert, editor, email [email protected].