THIS WEEK: Friday, November 9, 2012 @ 7:30pm
(Rebroadcast Sunday @ 11am )
Photo Courtesy: Kansas City Star
UNDERSTANDING ELECTION 2012
Billions and billions of dollars have just been spent trying to influence your vote. Now Election 2012 is finally over, we try to make sense of the choices Kansas and Missouri voters made at the ballot box on Tuesday and assess its impact on our future.
McCASKILL WINS: The polls before Election Day showed that St. Louis area Congressman Todd Akin (R) still had a shot at unseating Missouri U-S Senator Claire McCaskill. But he loses by 16 points. Was it simply the illegitimate rape comment that sank his campaign? Or was there more to it than that?
CIGARETTE TAX FAILS: It had been on the ballot twice before. Third time lucky anyone? Not so for the Missouri tobacco tax. Efforts to raise Missouri’s lowest in the nation cigarette tax failed on Election night by the slimmest of margins. Tuesday’s vote was 50.8 percent against. By the way, in 2002, the vote was 51 percent against. In 2006, it was 52 percent.
KANSAS: Who would control the Kansas Senate was a big story line of this election in the Sunflower State. According to the Associated Press, “Conservatives are now on track to hold a super-majority of 27 in the 40-member Senate.” So what does that mean?
VOTING LINES, MACHINES & PHOTO ID: In Kansas, this was also the first election where you had to show a picture ID. You may remember there were lots of concerns that many people would be disenfranchised. Voters would be turned away at polling stations. Did we witness any of that on Tuesday? Were there any big problems reported of any kind at our bi-state polling stations?
THE OTHER STATEWIDE BALLOT ISSUES: Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelming approved a ballot measure that blocks the governor or any state agency in the Show-Me-State from setting up a “health care exchange,” an integral part of the Affordable Care Act. Now that President Obama won the election, what does this mean? Also on Election Day, voters reject changing the way higher court judges are picked, but opt to give the city of St. Louis the right to govern and control its own police force. Will KCMO Mayor Sly James now head straight to Jefferson City to demand a similar local control measure for the Kansas City police department?
NIXON FOUR MORE YEARS: Missouri voters gave four more years to Governor Jay Nixon. Peter Kinder is awarded another term as Lt. Governor. Chris Koster earns re-election as Attorney General. Clint Zweifel will continue on as State Treasurer. But there will be a new Secretary of State and he’s from Kansas City. Missouri State Representative Jason Kander, a Democrat wins by the slimmest of margins. He will replace Robin Carnahan, who opted not to seek re-election. But if Missouri is such a “red state” why are four of the five statewide officeholders now Democrats?
CONGRESSIONAL STATUS QUO: There were celebrations at the headquarters of Vicky Hartzler Tuesday night and at the Emanuel Cleaver campaign. In fact every single member of our Congressional delegation is re-elected by wide margins. For all the frustration that nobody likes Congress (and their approval rating back in August was at 10%, according to Gallup) are there any lessons to learn here?
OUR POST-ELECTION REVIEWERS:
Patrick Tuohey
Missouri Record, Editor
Bill Grady
Newsradio KMBZ
Steve Kraske
The Star/KCUR
Dave Helling
Kansas City Star
***A NOTE FROM NICK:
Your thoughts are always important to me. Send an e-mail to nhaines@kcpt.org or share and connect at the Nick Haines page on Facebook. Thanks for watching Kansas City Week in Review.
Nick!
