Posted on 07/16/2002 8:27:47 PM PDT by rwfromkansas
Editorial from the Wichita Eagle:
Ideas take money
The school plan unveiled this week by GOP gubernatorial candidate Tim Shallenburger has some worthy stuff in it, including stiffer math and science graduation standards, and merit pay and tax credits for teachers. We also second the state treasurer's beliefs that too many kids have values "misshapen" by television and popular music, and that schools should have "unwavering rules of conduct."
So it's too bad that so much of Mr. Shallenburger's plan is rendered irrelevant by the state's continuing budget bind -- and by the "no-new-taxes" candidate's refusal to itemize how he'd cut his way to a solution for it.
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I also wanted to use this thread to pass along poll information from KWCH in Wichita. They said the majority of those they polled are still unsure about who they will vote for in the primary coming up in 3 weeks. This is big and means this race is not over and there is plenty of room left to influence minds.
I believe Shallenburger would gain much more support if he would just take a little time and show what he would cut. It would do everything to dispel the attacks from the "moderates" that claim he can't do it without cutting education etc.
PLEASE contact the Shallenburger campaign and tell him to show proof to the citizens of this state that his approach will work. It would do a lot to give him more support.
Please call and fax his campaign office at the following numbers:
Voice - (785) 862-1200 Fax - (785) 862-1201
In regards to the second point that I just heard on channel 12 a few minutes ago (they actually have been doing a good job of being fair and balanced recently), many Kansans are still undecided on who to vote for in August. This means there is a great opportunity to make a difference right now. There is a great opportunity to spread the word about Tim Shallenburger and how he will turn this state around. Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, put fliers up around town. Call the campaign office and order yard signs or bumper stickers. There are signs of voter apathy, which means potentially extremely low voter turnout. This is good news for us. We could win the primary if we just let the word out....come on Freepers!! Let's do it!!
lagamorph...I'll plant one of those yard signs now.
His name is Dennis Hawver, an attorney.
Putting the right people in place, we could cut government 30% and not even miss it. Dennis Wilson has did a wonderful job and deserves to be elected as the new treasurer. He hired most of the folks that have done such a wonderful job in that office and he has their respect.
Shallenburger gave back many times more money in the unclaimed property division by taking it on the road putting up a web site to search, reduced the time it takes to get your money from 120 days to about 10.
He instituted the educational savings account so the government wouldn't get 30% (or whatever the tax rate is) of the money put aside for education.
He instituted the low interest loan program to strapped farmers and did it without any new staff. $50 million dollars the first year, it was gone in less than 24 hours, and $10 million additional money the next year.
Taken from the Lindsborg News-Record July 11, 2002. Quote "In early February, 1996, a group of House Republicans, with the blessing of Speaker Tim Shallenburger, introduced the boldest reform of Kansas ethics statutes since the state's conflict of interest, campaign finance and lobbyist disclosure laws were enacted 20 years earlier.
The reform proposal included banning the use of state and local tax funds for lobbying, prohibiting elected officials from serving on the boards of political action committees, and forbidding "referral fees" - money paid to a legislator or campaign committee in return for sending business to a lobbyist. The measure also banned lawmakers or state employees from doing business with the state, or with state-regulated businesses.
'The subject goes beyond the issue of ethics to the power of politics,' Shallenburger said at the time, 'Power puts people in a position to make money, or to help their friends make money. We want to dismantle that.'
It didn't happen. For openers, it was learned that 16 of the 17 members of the House Ethics Committee - the panel conducting the reform hearings - had accepted $240,000 in campaign contributions from PACs, businesses and other special interests targeted in the bill.
But even as the reforms were dissolved, one by one, Shallenburger remained unbowed. The moment for him was defining. He had at least provoked a protracted discussion of power and influence at the Statehouse, and this had honed his conviction that government was about people, and not about institutions, or domains, or the hidden codes and structures of a culture of prudent greed.
Shallenburger's history frightens many. He has been a friend to both labor and agriculture, to teachers (the ones who work in the classroom), and students. He is not a friend of corporate welfare, of bureaucrats who preside over fiefdoms, of cabinet secretaries who build moats around their castles, or of the establishment "moderates" who rule by fiat, favor, or retribution.
He is appalled at the kind of thinking that presents Kansans with hundreds of millions of dollars in tunnels, garages, Capitol remodeling and other monuments to excess - while classrooms go begging, cities and counties go to the food line, and more citizens go without the basics, including affordable insurance.
This election is about contrast, one that is basic, one that is woven through Kansas history. It is the contrast between tomorrow and yesterday. Between those who seek opportunities to add new luster and livability to Kansas and those who are convinced she will collapse if we tinker too much. Between change, and stand-pattism.
Do we want a chief executive who believes government is about people, about tomorrow, or yet another who would treat the Capitol as an establishment hobby farm> - JM" unquote
I think we should focus on Tim's record as grassroots conservatives, that's the kind of campaign he is running and he will win on August 6th.
http://www.cjonline.com/stories/071402/kan_tim.shtml
Political puzzle
In Shallenburger's view, less is bestBy Chris Grenz - The Capital-Journal - 7/13/2002
Tim Shallenburger is a bit of a riddle, a slate of apparent contradictions. Shallenburger, the state treasurer, is running for governor on a simple platform:
Less government. More efficient government. Lower taxes.But the conservative Republican son of a Democrat was propelled into politics by environmental concerns -- and he hoped government could help fix the problem.Among his proudest achievements in his decade and a half of government service was helping his friends and constituents clean up after the 1993 floods. Being in government helped him cut through the red tape, he said, once again allowing government to come to the rescue.
He talks about cutting wasteful spending in government, but in his first year on the job as state treasurer, he remodeled the entire office.
He insists he has never been interested in political advancement, but he has been fascinated by politics since he watched a national political convention as a youngster. Friends and enemies alike almost universally describe him as a highly skilled politician. He has never lost a campaign.
And not a year has gone by in the past 15 years that the man who wants a smaller government hasn't collected a paycheck from the government.
Lt. Gov. Gary Sherrer, one of Shallenburger's most outspoken critics, easily reels off a list of what he views as inconsistencies.
"My problem with Tim is two-fold -- his philosophy and his inconsistency with his own philosophy," Sherrer said. "This is about a vision for the state that's positive. And it's really about the integrity of living your philosophy, being consistent with your philosophy. I don't see that in his past and that's why I don't have any confidence that it would be in his future."
But Shallenburger sees things differently. He doesn't hate government. Quite the contrary, its services have an important role in society, he readily acknowledges. But that doesn't mean government has to continue swelling in size and budget. He has argued for years in favor of a smaller government, but he hasn't had the bully pulpit to force change.
As governor, he realizes, things could be different.
"There are two trains of thought in this election -- me and everybody else," he said during a recent interview. "My belief is we really do make Kansas better if our government doesn't grow so much. The other train is, we can grow government, create programs to help people. I think it's the difference between Republicans and Democrats. It's just the two Republicans running against me think more like Democrats."
Blue-collar background
Shallenburger, 48, knows a little something about the difference between Republicans and Democrats. His mom tended to vote for the GOP candidates. His dad was a union activist and was proud to be a Democrat.
Timothy Mark Shallenburger, a fourth-generation Kansan, was born March 14, 1954, in Joplin, Mo., because his hometown of Baxter Springs in extreme southeast Kansas was too small to have a hospital. He was the middle child of Dorothy and Lloyd Shallenburger's three kids. Tim's older brother, Lloyd Shallenburger Jr., is a teacher in Broken Arrow, Okla. His younger sister, Tanya Carlson, teaches sixth-grade science in Baxter Springs.
He was a good kid, his mother said, who was popular and well-liked at school, was involved in many school clubs and activities, and played first-chair trumpet in the school band. Nearly every week, he was mentioned in the local newspaper. He worked hard in school and made the honor roll, she said.
Shallenburger declined The Topeka Capital-Journal's request to view his school transcripts, tax records and health history.
Dorothy Shallenburger said her son is easygoing, doesn't judge people and rarely gets angry. Even as a kid, he used his quick sense of humor to diffuse tense situations. In fact, Dorothy Shallenburger said if her son has any faults, it is that he is too quiet.
"I don't think he talks enough," she said. "I've often wondered how he got in politics."
But the signs were there. Shallenburger was president of the student council in high school. He was chairman of the Cherokee County Young Republicans in 1972, and Dorothy Shallenburger said her son's Nixon campaign posters and buttons are still in her basement.
Deann Binns, who was a teacher at Baxter Springs High School when Shallenburger was a student, said everyone expected him to move on to bigger things.
"We knew he was a leader in high school," Binns, who is now retired and a school board member, told The Joplin Globe.
But Shallenburger's decision to become a Republican -- made after comparing both political parties' platforms while watching a convention on TV -- initially left his father chagrined, the candidate said.
Lloyd Shallenburger, who died in February 2000, worked at a lead and zinc smelter in Galena as an electrician and later held a similar job at another large plant in Joplin. The family had enough money to get by, but wasn't rich, Shallenburger said. His mother has never been on a plane or seen the ocean. But his dad worked hard to put food on the table.
"He always complained to me that if you took your shower before you went to work rather than after you got home, then you didn't really work," Shallenburger said. "My dad insisted that the working man's party was the Democratic Party, and then he'd sit and complain about his taxes every day. It seemed quite ironic, so I became a Republican."
Early career
Shallenburger graduated from Baxter Springs High School in 1972. He then attended Pittsburg State University for one year before transferring to Coffeyville Community College. He dropped out early to take a job working in a pizza restaurant back in Baxter Springs. He was 20 years old -- more interested in making some money than getting an education, he said.
"It was probably one of the biggest mistakes I ever made," he said. "If I had it to do over, I would probably finish. But would it make me a better person or any smarter? I don't know."
Before long, he took a job at a finance company doing repossessions. But when they wanted to make him a manager and send him to Oklahoma, he balked and instead became an assistant manager at a Baxter Springs bank. Eventually, he did work for a bank just across the border in Miami, Okla., before returning to Baxter Springs where he worked at American National Bank.
Shallenburger also worked stints as a salesman for both the Information Network of Kansas, the state's online computer database agency, and for Sunflower Supply Co., a wholesale candy and tobacco distributor.
And, he worked for about 2 1/2 years as vice president for strategic planning of BioCore Inc., a Topeka medical products company that became embroiled in controversies about state investments in the firm, campaign contribution ethics violations and tax evasion. Shallenburger, who was speaker of the House while employed by BioCore, was one of three conservative lawmakers on the company's payroll. He resigned in December 1997 to focus on his legislative duties and his campaign for state treasurer.
In March 1997, Attorney General Carla Stovall announced she planned to investigate whether Shallenburger and two other conservative lawmakers hired by BioCore -- then-Rep. Phill Kline, currently a Republican candidate for attorney general, and then-Rep. Greg Packer, R-Topeka -- acted illegally or unethically to help BioCore obtain more than $750,000 in state economic development grants. In January 1998, Stovall said there was no evidence the three had done anything illegal or unethical.
The issue was raised in 1998 when Shallenburger ran for state treasurer, but he said he isn't worried about fallout during this campaign because he was cleared of wrongdoing.
"Somebody may want to make an issue out of it but, I mean, my gosh, I've had that thing reviewed by more lawyers," he said. "I was never asked to do anything political. It wasn't a political job."
Entry into politics
Shallenburger is proud of his family's mining background, but it was the ugly side of the mining industry that he says pushed him into politics. Decades of environmentally unfriendly lead and zinc mining had left the landscape and waterways heavily polluted. He complained nothing was being done, and friends told him if he wanted change, he should put his own name on the ballot.
Shallenburger took over the seat that was long held by Rep. Fred Weaver, D-Baxter Springs, who served in the House from 1971 to 1982 and was minority leader for his final four years. Weaver's wife, Patt, also held the seat after her husband. Fred Weaver, who said he no longer follows Kansas politics, took issue with Shallenburger's contention that he had done nothing about the environment. Weaver was appointed by Gov. Robert Docking to serve on a conservation board charged with addressing the mining pollution.
"I'm probably the most active environmentalist that ever went into Topeka," Weaver said. "I worked in the mines and I worked at the smelter. I had probably a better understanding of the issues and the problems than most people would have. But how he perceived it, I don't know."
Shallenburger lives in House District No. 1, which with 40 percent of the voters being registered Democrats is one of the most Democratic areas of the state. But as a lifelong resident, his name was well-known on Election Day. He had the support of family members who might not typically vote for a Republican.
"There's a lot of Shallenburgers down here and a lot of them are Democrats," said Rep. Doug Gatewood, D-Columbus, who took over Shallenburger's seat in the House in 1998, the year Shallenburger was elected state treasurer.
Still, despite being elected six times, not everyone in southeast Kansas is a Shallenburger fan.
Bill Handshy, a Republican precinct committeeman for 24 years who lives a few miles north of Baxter Springs, unsuccessfully opposed Shallenburger in the 1986 and 1994 primaries. He said that after Shallenburger was elected, he forgot about the folks back home.
"You'd ask him about something down here and he'd say, 'I just deal with state issues. I don't deal with issues down there,'" said Handshy, who suffered two lopsided losses to Shallenburger. "And if he gets elected governor, only God can help us. The state of Kansas would be put in poverty just like southeast Kansas."
At home in the House
In Topeka, Shallenburger set to work making good on his promise to clean up the mining country back home. By his second term, the Environmental Protection Agency announced an area near Galena in Cherokee County topped the federal agency's first list of hazardous waste sites to be cleaned up through its Superfund program. The $8.3 million project that involved clearing piles of contaminated crushed rock and reducing pollution in area streams took about three years.
Not long after he arrived in Topeka, Shallenburger fell in with a loose-knit group of about a dozen rebel lawmakers who called themselves the Republican Reform Caucus. Though not formed with the goal of being obstructionists, that was the role the dissidents frequently played, snarling the legislative process and frustrating the regular House leadership.
Yet, Shallenburger slowly worked his way up the chain of command in the House. In 1990, he became chairman of the House Elections Subcommittee on Ethics. In that position, he asked the panel to investigate whether incumbent officeholders seeking other elected positions should resign when they begin campaigning.
His comments, ironically, were directed in large part at state Treasurer Joan Finney, who was in the midst of her ultimately successful bid to be governor.
Climbing the rungs
In 1992, Shallenburger's colleagues elected him House speaker pro tem, the lower chamber's No. 3 post. And in 1995, he was elected speaker of the House. Although a two-term stint was once traditional, of the past four speakers of the House, he is the only one to have been elected to two terms.
Shallenburger insists he doesn't have the ego or political ambition fueling most career politicians. In hindsight, he might not even make the same choice to enter politics, he said. It has meant years of personal sacrifice for both himself and his family -- everything from spending hours away from home when he would prefer to be with his wife, Linda, and daughter, Candice, to keeping him off of the golf course on a warm spring day.
But he has persuasive -- and prominent -- friends, he said, who were able to continually talk him into seeking the next-highest office.
"I kind of felt like every time somebody's encouraged me to do it, they were really encouraging me for the right reasons," he said.
To become speaker, Shallenburger challenged and defeated the incumbent, moderate Republican speaker, 25-year House veteran Rep. Bob Miller, R-Wellington, who was seeking the traditional second term.
Conservatives swept all three top leadership posts, which Shallenburger compared to the Republican takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994. Just like his colleagues on Capitol Hill, who unveiled an agenda they called the Contract with America, Shallenburger rolled out a list of 18 priorities he characterized as a "contract with Kansas." Laws that would limit abortions and expand capital punishment topped the list.
In a 1996 meeting with The Capital-Journal editorial board, Shallenburger said what surprised him most about being speaker was the power he had.
"I can do more than I should be allowed to do," he said at the time. "If you wanted to, you could really keep things from happening or you could cause things to happen."
He said he tried to wield the power carefully. As speaker, Shallenburger -- often characterized as a populist -- said he "opened it up," allowing all members the chance to voice their views, both critics and supporters agreed.
"As speaker, he was very fair in the way he applied the rules. The rules applied the same to everybody," said Rep. Dennis McKinney, a Democrat from Greensburg who first came to the Legislature in 1992 and is now the House assistant minority leader. "It was fairly easy for people to at least get hearings on bills and at least get a fair shake on their ideas."
Making cuts
Using his power as speaker, Shallenburger was instrumental in pushing through tax cuts all four years he held the gavel, including property and vehicle tax cuts. The only major reform he didn't push through was a change in school finance, which he has labeled as his top priority in the gubernatorial campaign.
Robin Jennison, R-Healy, was elected majority leader during Shallenburger's first term as speaker. Two years later, Shallenburger appointed his political ally chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Jennison said he was proud of the budget and tax cuts they passed.
But those cuts came in the mid- to late 1990s. The state's economy was booming. It was possible to cut taxes while also expanding some services. Asked how Shallenburger would perform as governor in today's economic climate, Jennison paused.
"That's an interesting question," he said. "If Tim had the opportunity to be governor in a situation like when he had the opportunity to be speaker, I think he would be a very good governor and a very popular governor. I'm not sure that now is the greatest time for anybody, but given Tim's base of support and some of the decisions that need to be made, I think it will be a challenging time for him.
"We've got to have some fundamental change in the way we do things, and to get that fundamental change will be very difficult."
Shallenburger brushes aside the notion that today's financial times make the job more difficult. Balancing the budget is simple, he said: Don't spend more money than you have.
"I guess you have to judge things by what you consider difficult," he said in an interview at the treasurer's office, which overlooks the Statehouse. Hanging on the wall, there is a gold "Defender of Freedom" award that was presented by the National Rifle Association, a 1998 chairman's award from the National Republican Legislators Association and a plaque labeled "The Taxpayer's Hero Award." They all hang near a simple 8-by-11-inch frame containing the Ten Commandments.
"Climbing Mount Everest is difficult," he continues. "Going around in a wheelchair all day is difficult. But being governor when you have bad economic times versus good economic times is no more difficult. It's more mentally challenging probably, but that's OK. Problems are solutions waiting to happen.
"We can solve these problems. We've self-induced a lot of these problems."
Tom Sawyer isn't so sure. Sawyer, the current Kansas Democratic Party state chairman, entered the Legislature the same year as Shallenburger, worked on various committees with him and served as minority leader when Shallenburger was speaker. Sawyer said Shallenburger was easy to work with and had a solid leadership style. But Sawyer has no doubts that, given all his tough tax talk on the campaign trail, Shallenburger will make what Sawyer considers painful choices as governor.
"The Legislature did a poor job this year. They didn't really solve the budget crisis. They left it for next year," said Sawyer, who is hoping to return to the Kansas House next session. "My fear with Tim is that he has painted himself into such a corner that he will have no choice but to make those Draconian cuts that will hurt our Kansas children."
Into the treasurer's office
After winning his first statewide election in 1998 to become state treasurer, Shallenburger began a top-to-bottom analysis of his agency. He said waste abounded.
He didn't cut the staff. Instead, he merely trimmed the waste, he said. And despite having two new programs to manage and a more ambitious approach to returning unclaimed property, the treasurer's office has cut the amount of money it draws from the state budget by 30 percent.
And, yes, he did remodel the treasurer's office. But only after the Legislature blocked him from moving to a less expensive location, and only because his office was the last remaining floor in the Landon State Office Building that hadn't been renovated, and only because the money was there, he said.
"It's the kind of thing you do when you've got money and you don't do when you don't. We're broke right now," he said flatly. "This would not be the time to do it."
Shallenburger was opposed for state treasurer in 1998 by Shawnee County's own treasurer, then-Democrat Rita Cline. Cline, a social conservative who defected from the Democratic Party after it sanctioned the establishment of a gay, lesbian and transgender caucus at the Kansas Democratic Party's annual meeting in February 2001, is endorsing Shallenburger for governor. She was a gubernatorial candidate herself early in this campaign season.
"We share a lot of the same philosophies and ideas about what a public official should be like. He's open and honest. He is physically fit and mentally fit and the third and probably one of the most important, he's spiritually fit," she said. "And the thing that Tim and I definitely agree on -- there's only one way to lower taxes. You've got to cut the spending."
Shallenburger grew up attending a Baptist church in Baxter Springs. Now, he said he sometimes goes to a Topeka Baptist church on Sundays. If he and his wife are home in Cherokee County, they attend her church, Apostolic Faith Church. Shallenburger said he is religious, but he tries to separate religion from politics.
"I've witnessed some real hypocrites that use it for political gain, so we've tried to steer clear of that because it scares me when I watch those things happen," he said. "I'm socially conservative and that's because of my faith. But I don't try to seek out the largest church in town on election eve."
Running for governor
Last fall, Shallenburger's friends once again came to him and said the conservatives needed a candidate. Shallenburger hesitated, but after more meetings -- including a final push from U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, the champion of the conservative Republicans in Kansas -- Shallenburger relented.
His decision prompted prominent moderates, including Gov. Bill Graves, to publicly complain last year that if Shallenburger were nominated, moderates would be alienated and might sit out the race or vote for the Democrat. When moderate front-runner Attorney General Carla Stovall dropped out of the race, key Republicans, including the party chairman, gathered at the governor's mansion, ostensibly to discuss how the party would rebound from Stovall's bombshell announcement.
But Shallenburger cried foul, claiming they had discussed how the moderates could defeat him without Stovall in the primary. He criticized the party chairman for involving himself in the primary election. But he carried on with his campaign. He has dreams and goals for the state, he said. None of the other names floating around as potential Republican candidates shared his philosophy, which he has preached religiously throughout his career and during the campaign.
"We have argued for years that government is growing too fast, but we have not been in a position to stop it," he says.
On the grueling campaign trail, he has lost weight. He also has struggled to quit smoking, admitting he has mostly "mooched" cigarettes off friends since college.
"But it's so politically out of vogue and so expensive that I'm about done," he said.
Along the way, Shallenburger and his campaign staff have built a network of grassroots support, with county campaign chairpersons in about 85 of the state's 105 counties. Now they, too, talk about his message:
Smaller government. More with less."We can make government more efficient," he says again and again on the campaign trail. "There are things we can do to make Kansas better without increasing taxes."Shallenburger firmly believes there are so many frills -- from pencils to new furniture -- in the budget that the state can make ends meet simply by cutting out the extras.
"I'm not just saying that to be politically cute," he said. "I think I can do it. For the life of me, I don't know why everybody is critical of me for wanting to try. All of my opponents are critical. They smirk. They say, 'Aw, he's just saying that to get elected.' Well, don't vote me back in if we can't cut. We're not going to raise taxes. We're not going to grow government. There's nothing to lose here. I just know there are more efficient ways to do this. We're going to prove it can be done."
He points to his record in the treasurer's office as evidence, though he won't know details about where the costs can be trimmed from the state budget until he is elected. He plans to immediately empanel a blue-ribbon group of his Cabinet secretaries and advisers to comb through the books looking for waste.
And if you squeeze the turnip and there is no blood?
"Then you gotta cut. We'll do that if we have to," the candidate acknowledged, once again saying he won't know specifics about cuts until he is in office and has a chance to analyze the budget. "You run into a matter of priorities. Is it more important that we grow our government faster than people grow their budgets at home? I just don't think that it is.
"But I think you squeeze and the blood comes without hurting."
Asked if he might cut education, Shallenburger said he "potentially" may, but only if there is waste. Otherwise, he wouldn't cut education funding "if it's our No. 1 priority."
"We determine what our priorities are and we fund them first," he said. "It might mean that we not spend as much in other areas."
Realistic plan?
University of Kansas political science professor Burdett Loomis, who closely follows Kansas politics, once said Shallenburger's "more with less" message may sell well with some Kansas voters. But, he said, the rhetoric is "somewhere between disingenuous and wishful thinking."
But Rep. Doug Mays, R-Topeka, a staunch Shallenburger supporter, is sold. Mays grudgingly voted for a tax increase this past session. He said he would welcome a governor who provided other options, and he is convinced Shallenburger can do what he promises.
"He says he has some ideas on how to get the job done. At this point, I give him the benefit of the doubt," said Mays, who served under Speaker Shallenburger first as chairman of the House Rules and Journal Committee then as assistant majority leader. "When he was speaker, he said there were things he could accomplish and people doubted it and he did. I credit him with not wanting to look at tax increases first. He has the right attitude. That, in the end, is where it all starts -- with philosophy and attitude. If anyone can get the job done, he can."
But Lt. Gov. Sherrer detests Shallenburger's message, which he says is too negative to get Kansas Republicans excited.
"It's easy to be against taxes and it's easy to be against government and talk about how bad it is and how inefficient it is," Sherrer said. "But being against doesn't educate our children. Being against doesn't build safer roads. Being against doesn't really take care of those Kansans who really need help. Being against things isn't going to rebuild rural Kansas.
"If Tim's elected, am I going to not sleep at night? No. This state is truly bigger than its elected officials. My worry is, will we progress as a state? Will we get better? Will we be wanting to be on the cutting edge, or will we want to sink to the lowest minimal standard we can get by with?"
Sherrer maintains his comments about Shallenburger aren't personal. To the contrary, he said he enjoys Shallenburger's sense of humor and they "get along fine," so long as they aren't discussing politics. But his comments do illustrate a key difference in philosophies -- highlighting the deepening split within the Kansas Republican Party. Shallenburger thinks his ideas are the "cornerstone of the traditional Republican Party in Kansas." He expects a majority of Kansans will line up to support him.
"A lot of people try to play it too safe and try to say things that are politically correct and try to make sure that nobody gets offended by them. I'm not that way," he once said. "I just say what I think and if enough people want me to be elected they'll vote for me, and if they don't, they won't.
"We expect to win."
Chris Grenz can be reached at (785) 295-1190 or cgrenz@cjonline.com.
Tim Shallenburger
Age: 48
Hometown: Baxter Springs
Occupation: State treasurer
Education: Graduated from Baxter Springs High School in 1972. Attended Pittsburg State University and Coffeyville Community College, each for about a year. No college degree.
Family: Wife, Linda; daughter, Candice, 21.
This special report is one in a series of in-depth looks at candidates running for governor in the August primary. The basis for some of the questions the candidates were asked was formed by citizens focus groups. A report on a day with the candidate on the campaign trail appears in the Midway section.The schedule of stories about other gubernatorial candidates follows:
July 21, Bob Knight
July 28, Kathleen Sebelius
A package of stories on the attorney general candidates will run on Mondays.
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