KC Star: 2nd District Primary is Going to be Hot

Poor Jim Ryun- and poor Lynn Jenkins, too- the only thing the media cares about is Jim's clean campaign pledge that Lynn laughed (rightly) off the table.

You know it’s a hot congressional race when even talk of running a clean campaign turns nasty.

That’s what happened when Jim Ryun asked his Republican primary opponent, Kansas Treasurer Lynn Jenkins, to make their contest a polite one. Ryun, the track star who held Kansas’ 2nd District congressional seat for 10 years, said he got no response.

“She doesn’t show any interest in running anything other than a disappointing campaign,” he said last week.

But Jenkins said it is Ryun who disappointed her after outside groups from Washington spent thousands to denounce Jenkins in a round of television ads.

“This is a guy who has already spent — or his cronies in Washington spent — $120,000 running ads in this district that have distorted my record,” she said.

Snap. We're totally on Lynn's side in this one- Jim Ryun is trying to run the same kind of campaign against her that he ran against Congresswoman Nancy Boyda twice- he's desperately trying to make the issue the fact she's not worthy of being elected, so we'll all ignore the fact he was a horrible Member of Congress. Now, Lynn isn't worthy of being elected, but certainly not because she's pointing out the fact that Jim was, in fact, a horrible Member of Congress.

Here's another little tidbit-

Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats 43 percent to 29 percent. The district overwhelmingly re-elected President Bush in 2004, yet Democrats have held the congressional seat almost as often as Republicans during the past 40 years.

Also, those numbers make Boyda's 68% approval rating and her head-to-head match ups against both Ryun & Jenkins look pretty sweet- and evidence her work against illegal immigration and to bring our men and women home from Iraq with honor have resonated with the voters of her district.