By Edward Rosson
On Thursday, the media was invited to the opening press conference of four gubernatorial campaigns. What ensued should give any voter pause. All four campaigns displayed difficulty explaining their political platforms. Some took policy positions far outside of the political orthodoxy of any mainstream party. Sunflower Spotlight shined a light (pardon my pun) on these problematic stances and fiercely cross examined the communications director of each campaign. Those who follow me know that the Sunflower party is in my view the only viable party for Kansas. That being said, Thursday was a rough day for everyone. Hopefully, each campaign will revise and correct the positions staked out in these disastrous press conferences. I have broken down my analysis to cover each campaign individually. Here are my thoughts: The Isabella Southwick campaign sent out Communication Director Josh Hughes to answer the media’s questions. I had two takeaways from the exchange. The first was a refusal to swear off corporate PAC money. This opens up the Southwick campaign to bias towards big industry instead of the views of Kansans. The second issue was a profound lack of knowledge on healthcare policy. Coms Director Hughes claimed that the campaign supported the Medicare expansion provision in the Affordable Care Act. This provision doesn’t exist. The Southwick campaign must shore up its policy knowledge if they hope to convince voters that they can lead the state of Kansas. Senator Brandon Boyce sent out Communication Director Garrett Miller to address the media. He opened with a robust policy statement that outlined the campaigns vision. Miller defended Senator Boyce’s acceptance of Corporate PAC money and at times seemed enthusiastic about the idea. Miller also confirmed that Senator Boyce will reject any effort to roll back protections for pre-existing conditions. This will be appealing to moderates. Outside of these statements, Senator Boyce seems to hold positions largely in the Free State party orthodoxy. On Thursday, this campaign seemed to be the one to beat. Sunflower campaigns should be prepared to take on Senator Boyce. Gabe Mullen, Communications Director for Senator Sebastian Uriarte faced the media. Mullen expressed the need for safe communities in Kansas and endorsed allowing concealed carry on college campuses. This is an important issue for our party. Unfortunately, Senator Uriarte felt compelled to be hypocritical. In the announcement video for the campaign, he pledged to take on the special interests in Topeka. In this press conference, he showed that he is more than happy to take their money. Both Sunflower candidates seem content to take dirty money from lobbyists and business PACS. We in the Sunflower Party should hold them accountable. The final candidate was Mayor Jack Griswold and his communication director Anil Bhandari. This press conference was the most interesting. For starters, Bhandari seemed to have some difficulty on the subject of Marijuana. After using de-criminalize and legalization interchangeably, I forced him to clarify his position. He said that Griswold supports decriminalization as a way to achieve legalization but opposed any legislation to legalize Marijuana. This certainly seemed odd to me. Additionally, Bhandari said that the Mayor doesn’t support Medicaid. This was bizarre given that Medicaid is one of the most popular programs in the history of the United States. This program gives hundreds of thousands of people in Kansas healthcare. The final gaff was on climate change. Asked about whether humans impacted climate change, Bhandari said that they do not factor in science into their climate positions. This was an explosive statement and Bhandari seemed at a loss for words on how to clean up the damage. He finally said that the Mayor believes in human caused climate change. This issue seems like it will haunt the Griswold campaign for the foreseeable future. On a positive note, Mayor Jack Griswold has confirmed exclusively to Sunflower Spotlight that he will reject Corporate PAC Money and the support of Free State affiliated PACs. This puts him as the only candidate who will be beholden only to the voters of Kansas. If he cleans up these policy mistakes, that could be a compelling reason for Free State voters to support him. These press conferences were quite awful all around and damage control seems to be most campaign’s immediate concern. Fortunately, this is early in the campaign cycle and there is plenty of time to address these issues. As always, stay tuned to Sunflower Spotlight to keep up on the latest news in the Kansas gubernatorial election!
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By Jaylen Cavil Lawrence, KS – Communications directors from the four gubernatorial campaigns shared their candidates’ announcement videos and participated in a press conference on March 28 in Wescoe Hall. The press conference provided an opportunity for the campaigns to outline their policy focuses and answer questions from the media.
At the press conference, the two Free State campaigns shared an optimistic vision for the future of Kansas. Garrett Miller, Communications Director for the Brandon Boyce campaign, and Anil Bhandari, Communications Director for the Jack Griswold campaign, said that their candidates would be focusing on criminal justice reform. They both called for reducing punishments for non-violent drug offenders in Kansas. Griswold’s campaign said that they would push for Kansas to de-criminalize marijuana and eventually move towards full legalization. Boyce’s campaign said that they would like Kansas to immediately legalize marijuana for medicinal and recreational purposes, then went further to address those Kansans who have been affected by the current laws. “We feel that if you have simple marijuana or drug charges, if it’s been non-violent and it’s not a distribution charge, your record should be expunged,” Miller said. Boyce’s campaign also went further in their criminal justice reform plan by calling for the end of private prisons. “We are going to really push the state legislature to end private prisons,” Miller said. “We feel that people should not be able to profit off of the mistakes of others.” Unfortunately, it did not seem like the Sunflower Party campaigns shared this interest in criminal justice reform. Much of the policy that was promoted by these campaigns would only worsen the problem of mass incarceration. Josh Hughes, Communications Director for the Isabella Southwick campaign, called for an increased police presence in Kansas. Hughes would not give a definitive answer when asked if the campaign is accepting corporate PAC money or if Southwick supports the private prison industry. Voters should question the intentions of a candidate who calls for policies that would lead to more Kansans being incarcerated, while also not disclosing if they are taking money from the private prison industry. On the issue of gun control, Griswold’s campaign said that they were in favor of “common sense” gun control legislation. “We want universal background checks,” Bhandari said. “We want things that make sense. We don’t want people having assault rifles in our communities.” Other campaigns positioned themselves on the other side of the gun control debate. Gabe Mullen, Communications Director for the Sebastian Uriarte campaign, said that Uriarte was a supporter of the controversial law that allows for the concealed carry of firearms at public universities and colleges in Kansas. “We believe that it is important for every individual to keep themselves safe from harm,” Mullen said. “Inherent in that is being able to actually defend against someone else.” Supporting the “campus carry” law may not go over well with Sunflower Party voters. According to an opinion poll done by Kansas Debates, less than 35 percent of Sunflower Party voters believe that concealed guns should be allowed on college campuses. By Edward Rosson
The voters of the Sunflower party have an important choice to make. Governor Bradley Smith is term limited and the voters must decide the future of the party in this next election. The Smith years have been dominated by partisan gridlock and inaction on the pressing issues Kansans care about. The party must nominate a strong leader to lead the ticket. I’ve been informed that two candidates are preparing to announce bids for the Governor’s mansion. A thorough vetting must occur to ensure that our candidate can defeat the Free State Party. A Free State Administration would destroy our Healthcare, sell our land out to special interests, and embolden criminals to terrorize our communities. The first candidate rumored to take the plunge is State Senator Sebastian Uriarte. The son of immigrants, Senator Uriarte has fought for environmental justice and worked on numerous Sunflower Party campaigns. Sources close to the campaign say that Uriarte would make environmental issues the core issue of his campaign. The source also floated the idea of running on universal healthcare for Kansans, an increasingly popular idea that has yet to be fully embraced by the Sunflower party establishment. Time will tell to see if bold policies will pay off during the primary. When I asked Senator Uriarte about his rumored candidacy, He stated that “we need a strong candidate to break up the partisan gridlock in Topeka and deliver on the issues important to Kansans.” He added that he might be the candidate to do it. The other candidate is Isabella Southwick. Isabella is a mother of three who serves as a prosecutor in Lawrence. She also serves as a member of the criminal law advisory committee. A source close to the candidate told me that Isabelle is planning on running hard on education reform. They added that they are looking into criminal justice reform, a position unusual for a Sunflower candidate. Isabelle Southwick confirmed exclusively to Sunflower Spotlight that she is indeed running for governor. When I spoke to her, Isabelle said that she is “running to create a better Kansas. I want to strengthen Kansas for the next generation and continue the great legacy of the sunflower state.” With the whole primary ahead, these two campaigns will have the obligation to convince the Sunflower party that they can maintain the governor’s mansion and deliver on the policies that Kansans have demanded over the last several years. Stay tuned to Sunflower Spotlight for exclusive stories and top notch commentary. By Jaylen Cavil With election season quickly approaching, Kansas voters will soon be faced with an important decision as to who their next Governor will be. Although there has been no official announcement from potential candidates, both the Free State and Sunflower parties have released their platforms. These party platforms offer voters a stark difference in the future they want to see for Kansas. One of the biggest differences in these platforms is the stance on education that the two parties take. poll
The Free State Party is clear in their support for public education, while the Sunflower Party supports unpopular changes to the Kansas Constitution that would only do more to hurt our public schools. This difference in education policy will be the reason why Kansas voters will elect a Free State candidate as their next Governor. Voters in Kansas are tired of the education debate. They are ready for politicians to stop arguing and finally provide the necessary education funding that the Kansas Supreme Court and Constitution requires. The Free State Party understands that this is not only what the voters want, but what is also necessary. That is why they write in their party platform, “We support adequate and equitable funding for K-12 public education as required by the Kansas Constitution.” The Sunflower party, on the other hand, has outlined a much different vision for the future of public education funding in Kansas. Instead of supporting a plan that would adhere to legal standards for education funding, they would rather change the Kansas Constitution. Sunflower politicians want to give the Kansas Legislature the power to decide which schools are funded adequately and which schools have to suffer. In the Sunflower Party platform they write, “we support amending the Kansas Constitution to give the Legislature exclusive authority in deciding what constitutes adequate funding for public schools.” This language may prove to be a mistake by Sunflower Party officials. Amending the Kansas Constitution so that K-12 funding is determined solely by the Kansas Legislature is an extremely unpopular idea. In fact, when this exact question was asked in a poll done by the Kansas Policy Institute in September 2018, only 16 percent of Kansas voters said that they were in support of the idea. Due to the vast unpopularity of the Sunflower Party’s education stance, this gubernatorial race may be decided by who wins the Free State primary. While there have been no campaign announcements yet, there is plenty of speculation. One of the candidates who are rumored to be running for the Free State Party nomination is Lawrence Mayor Jack Griswold. Mayor Griswold said that if he were to run, “the main focus of my campaign will be public education.” This policy focus by Mayor Griswold’s potential campaign suggests that he also believes that public education will be the deciding issue in this election. The Free State primary will come down to more than just education, as Mayor Griswold will likely face a primary opponent with possibly the same campaign focus. But, once voters in the general election are presented with a choice between the two parties’ education plans, the Free State candidate will have the advantage. |
AuthorCovering the 2019 Kansas Election ArchivesCategories |