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Posted on Sat, Oct. 31, 2009 10:15 PM
COMMENTARY
Obama is certainly no LBJ — just ask Kansas’ two senators
More News
President Barack Obama doesn’t play hardball. At least not in the LBJ mold.
We know that from what’s happening — or not happening — in Kansas.
The state’s two Republican senators, Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, regularly criticize the president on health care reform or veterans policies or his handling of Sudan.
Yet there’s every indication that Obama will sign a spending bill that provides $32 million for the proposed National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility over in Manhattan.
Lyndon Baines Johnson, the master pol, would have demanded something: a tough vote, more cooperation or fewer criticisms in exchange for his help on something as major as NBAF.
“Obama has decided to take a pretty accommodating approach,” said Washburn University poli sci guy Bob Beatty.
Haranguing? Nonstop browbeating?
“Not Obama’s style,” Beatty said.
•••
Just how seriously was Kathleen Sebelius considered for the vice presidency last year?
Apparently not very.
Although Obama’s team kept Sebelius, the former Kansas governor who is now the health and human services secretary, on the veep “short list” right up to the weekend that Joe Biden was picked, a new book by campaign manager David Plouffe, “The Audacity to Win,” suggests Sebelius wasn’t really on that very short list after all.
By early August, Plouffe reports, the three finalists were Biden, Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana and Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia.
The glaring lack of a woman surely was the reason the campaign kept Sebelius’ name in play.
•••
After a fierce, months-long pounding for failing to develop a GOP alternative health care bill, Missouri congressman and U.S. Senate hopeful Roy Blunt finally trotted out a nine-bill health care package on Friday.
“Nothing I’m proposing is hidden in a 1,990-page bill,” he said, a reference to one Democratic version.
•••
Bob Dole has won much-deserved praise for his bipartisan push on health care reform and his calls for a less rancorous Washington.
But a fascinating new book, “The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History With the President” by Pulitzer Prize winner Taylor Branch, reveals a Dole from another time.
As Senate Republican leader, Dole forthrightly told Clinton early in his presidency, according to the book, that the opposition’s job was not making deals, but rather making the president fail so he could be quickly replaced.
Clinton told Branch that Dole started running for president (in 1996) within 10 days of Clinton’s inauguration.
“Every time he goes to Kansas, he stops off in New Hampshire on the way,” Clinton said.
•••
Kansas Sen. Chris Steineger, a Kansas City, Kan., Democrat, must have not received much encouragement to run for governor. He’s out across the state telling reporters he’s now leaning toward a 2010 run for secretary of state.
But he hasn’t entirely ruled out a run for governor, he told The Hutchinson News.
Note to the senator: It’s a little late in the cycle to be wavering.
•••
On the Kansas City political front, former councilman Jim Rowland is weighing a run for mayor. Expect a “yea” or “nay” soon.
Another former councilman, Al Brooks, who some think could waltz into the office in 2011, says “more than likely not” to a second run.
He said he’s been asked so many times to run again that “it makes me think I might be able to win.”
•••
Former Missouri senator Jim Talent is keeping his name in the news, and it’s not lost on anyone that a rematch with Sen. Claire McCaskill could be in the offing in 2012.
Talent is serving as vice chair of the bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. The panel was established by Congress to build on the 9/11 Commission’s work.
Asked on TV last week whether he’d run again, Talent pointedly didn’t shut the door: “I don’t know. I’m happy doing what I’m doing.”
Talent is the rare politician who has remained viable despite two narrow losses for statewide office — for governor and U.S. Senate.
To reach Steve Kraske, call 816-234-4312 or send e-mail to skraske@kcstar.com.
Posted on Sat, Oct. 31, 2009 10:15 PM
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