A lovely little piece in the Washington Post today about our Member of Congress- particularly so because it details how Nancy Boyda has eschewed her party in favor of Kansas.
She stayed home from the Democratic National Convention, saying she preferred time with family and constituents to schmoozing with party leaders. She declined the health insurance available to members of Congress, saying she would rather endure the "nightmare" of private insurance to better understand the struggles her constituents face. And she is the only freshman Democrat in a tight House race to refuse help from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which was prepared to spend more than $1 million on her race, an amount that would have nearly doubled her campaign coffers. Boyda declined to join the Frontline Democrats program, which provides fundraising and strategic help to vulnerable incumbents.
"What I wanted was to be able to make independent decisions about how I ran this campaign," said Boyda, 53, a chemist before entering politics. "What I'm fighting against is Washington's control over me, my message, the way I run."
The Washington way failed her bad in 2004; Boyda style worked in 2006, and it's working again in 2008.
Jenkins has the difficult task of trying to persuade voters to "fire their member of Congress twice in a row," and she doesn't appear to be making headway, [David] Wasserman, [House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report] said. He recently changed his rating of the race from "tossup" to "leans Democratic."
We're down to the wire- only 4 more days!
Because someone was silly today and tried to comment something saying this race was something other than a toss up or leaning toward Congresswoman Nancy Boyda, we wanted to give you all nice clickable links to every single major race ranking list so you can see for yourselves what the political professionals think is going on in the 2nd District of Kansas:
- Charlie Cook- The Cook Political Report: Lean Democratic (Oct. 30)
- Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball '08: Democratic Hold (Oct. 30)
- National Journal: Not in the top 55 most competitive seats (the KS-02 was 44rd last week) (Oct. 30)
- Stu Rothenberg- The Rothenberg Political Report: Toss Up/ Tilt Democratic (Oct. 29)
- Swing State Project: Lean D (Oct. 29)
- Washington Post: 43rd Most Likely Seat to Switch Party (Oct. 24)
- RealClearPolitics: Toss Up or Leans GOP (depending on where you look on the site); 19th Most Likely Seat to Switch Party (Last update unknown)
- CQ Politics: No Clear Favorite (Last update unknown)
So, there you go- how all of the big national folk think this race is shaking out. It's obviously tight- a race for a Democrat in an R+7 will always be- but it's clear most agree with our assesment: Lynn Jenkins simply hasn't convinced the voters of the Kansas 2nd Nancy Boyda's been a bad representative, and Jenkins and the conservative third party groups would have been wise to keep their outlandish claims about "the largest tax increase in history" in their hats.
Brand new on The Cook Political Report today- this race has been officially upgraded from "Toss-up" to "Leans Democratic."
Why? The NRCC pulled hundreds of thousands in ads for Lynn Jenkins, Jenkins has been plagued by two weeks of horrible news stories locally pointing out she's really, really just not a competent state treasurer...oh, and, even though she raised a huge amount of money, Boyda still has more cash on hand going into the final stretch.
Saw the CULAC ad on TV last night- reminds us all Jenkins is good with money. Is that sound we hear the district laughing?
This blog is not affiliated in any way with the Kansas Democratic Party, the Democratic National Committee, Congresswoman Nancy Boyda, the Office of Congresswoman Nancy Boyda, or the campaign to re-elected Congresswoman Nancy Boyda. All commentary herein not directly attributed must be considered the opinion of the authors of this blog and not of any other individual, including Congresswoman Nancy Boyda.
