THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2002
POLITICS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 9A
R
In re-election bid, Roberts has firm grip on Senate seat
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — As he handed out campaign-logo jar openers last week at the Kansas State Fair, U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts joked, "Get a grip on Washington."
Roberts, 66, has a firm grip on his Senate seat as he seeks a second term. With no Democratic opponent in the Nov. 5 general election, the Republican is about as close as any politician ever comes to having a free ride.
A couple of third-party challengers are running, but this is a far cry from 1996, when he and Democratic state Treasurer Sally Thompson battled to succeed Republican Nancy Kassebaum.
"That race was completely different — it was an open race; there was more interest in it; we were more successful in attracting funding," Roberts said in an interview.
"But anything can happen in politics," he said. "I have two candidates, one Reform and one Libertarian, one in the Kansas City area and one in the Wichita area. Simple geography tells you they're going to get some votes. I don't think it will be any kind of slam-bang, special interest money, soft-money kind of campaign."
Roberts keeps saying he can't take anything for granted. However, the last Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Kansas was George McGill, who won in 1932 but lost four subsequent re-election attempts.
Democrats tried to recruit a challenger in Dan Glickman, the former Kansas congressman and U.S. agriculture secretary under President Clinton. But Glickman
dropped the idea after the Sept. 11 attacks, saying he didn't relish a partisan battle while the nation tried to pull together.
So Libertarian Steve Rosile of Wichita and the Reform Party's George Cook of Mission are it in terms of challengers, and they are running extremely low-profile campaigns.
What's wrong with Roberts, Rosile said, is that, "he's a Republican, and Republicans haven't delivered" on promises such as making government smaller. Rosile also ran for Senate in 1996 and has run for U.S. House in Wichita's 4th District as well as in the 1st District of western Kansas. Cook did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Roberts is serving his third decade in Congress. After working for 12 years for U.S. Rep. Keith Sebelius — Republican father-in-law of Democratic gubernatorial nominee Kathleen Sebelius — Roberts won a three-way primary to succeed him in 1980.
He served in the House through 1996, when Kassebaum announced her retirement. Then serving as chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Roberts first said he was too busy with the farm bill to run, but soon changed his mind.
Thompson handed Roberts his toughest race in years, painting Roberts as a Washington insider who took advantage of congressional perks. Still, he won by a wide margin, 62 percent to 34 percent, and carried all but one county, Wyandotte.
One year later, he helped Thompson secure the job of chief financial officer at the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, a position to which President Clinton had nominated her.
Roberts would have been well-positioned for a tough challenge this year, should one have arisen. Bedside the Senate Agriculture Committee, he serves on the Armed Services and Intelligence committees, positions that command respect as well as campaign contributions. The panels gained even more heft after last year's terrorist attacks.
His record would have drawn attacks.too.
As chief architect of the old 1996 farm bill, Roberts hoped to move U.S. agriculture away from dependence on huge government subsidies and toward a market-based approach. But the worldwide farm economy tumbled into depression just after the new law took place, inviting criticism of his farm policy vision.
Still, he enjoys widespread support among farmers and ranchers in Kansas, many of whom agree with him that the successor to his farm bill, enacted earlier this year, provides a much less adequate safety net for disasters such as this year's drought.
Since he moved into his Senate offices on the north side of the Capitol, Roberts has learned a new way of doing business, working behind the scenes through sometimes arcane Senate courtesies to move legislation.
"I thought I knew at least the buttons to push, or the people to see, or the procedures to follow, to get things done in the House," he said. "You go to both the majority and the minority, the Rules Committee, the leadership, and you network."
Finger-pointing in Florida, talk of recount and worries about November elections
The Associated Press
MIAMI — Despite a $32 million renovation, Florida's new election system crashed in an embarrassment that, like the 2000 election, left voters wondering whether their votes counted, candidates pondering recounts and everyone asking who's to blame.
"You guys have NO idea what a mess this has been," state election monitor Mike Lindsey wrote his Tallahassee bosses in a pre-dawn e-mail from Broward County on yesterday. "The mess was the result of no planning, poor leadership, lack of 'process ownership' and passing the buck."
With 3 percent of precincts still to report by yesterday afternoon, former Attorney General Janet Reno trailed Tampa lawyer Bill McBride for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination by 19,000 votes out of more than 1 million cast.
The debacle, echoing the 2000 presidential stalemate, drew even more scrutiny because, once again, Florida had a high-profile race that was too close to call.
The voting problems ranged from technical to human error. Workers had problems starting up new touchscreen voting machines; ballot cards tore and couldn't be read on optical scanning machines; technical problems delayed processing the electronic cartridges used in the
new touchscreen voting machines. In Miami-Dade, nearly half of the ballots that were still uncounted yesterday were cast by black voters.
In addition, some poll workers failed to show up; several polling places opened late; some voters were wrongly turned away for not showing a picture identification.
In response to complaints Tuesday, Gov. Jeb Bush extended polling by two hours but that led to yet more abuses in Hollywood, workers at one precinct who had not been told of the extension held the door shut and cursed at voters.
In all, 14 of the state's 67 counties reported voting problems, including six of the seven that were sued after the 2000 presidential stalemate.
On yesterday, the blame game was fast and furious.
Bush and voters pointed fingers at election chiefs in MiamiDade and Broward counties, which bought touchscreen machines to replace punchcard equipment. All counties were required to get rid of punchcard ballots.
"Let's be clear about this: 65 counties got it right. Wasn't perfect, but they got it right," Bush said. "I guarantee you that in November, the election will run much more smoothly than the supervisors of elections allowed to occur."
Others, however, worried that Florida's troubles were a
warning of more to come. Several states scrapped punch-card ballots, bought new equipment and changed their laws since the presidential race.
"It's not just Florida. It's a national problem," said Rob Richie, executive director of the Maryland-based Center for Voting and Democracy. "We will have lots of problems in the next two months."
Reno met with legal advisers and contemplated legal action yesterday. "I'm thinking to myself this morning," Reno told reporters as she ducked inside headquarters.
She could demand a recount or sue to overturn the results. Secretary of State Jim Smith said the race may be tight enough to automatically trigger a statewide recount—less than half a percent.
"She's extremely upset about the disenfranchisement," said Reno spokeswoman Nicole Harburger. "People were not allowed their right to vote. ... That's unacceptable to her."
By yesterday afternoon, with 97 percent of precincts reporting, McBride had 597,822 votes, or 45 percent, compared with Reno's 578,240 votes, or 43 percent. State Sen. Daryl Jones had 154,626 votes, or 12 percent.
Tuesday's election contests in 12 states and the District of Columbia brought other voting problems, though none on Florida's scale.
KANSAN
Cut this portion out and return to us Thr University Daily Kansan.119 Stauffer-Flint
O Florida State at Maryland O
O Nebraska at Penn. State O
O Michigan at Notre Dame O
O USC at Colorado O
O Missouri at Bowling Green O
O Iowa State at Iowa O
O SW Missouri State at Kansas O
O Ohio at Florida O
O Texas at North Carolina O
O Mississippi at Texas Tech O
O Bethune Cookman at Morris Brown O
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