New Appeal to Reason: 02/01/2014

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Poll Shows Brownback, Roberts,and Kobach Vulnerable

A new poll from the respected Public Policy Polling shows that Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, Senator Pat Roberts, and Secretary of State Kris Kobach are all seriously lacking in popular appeal.

BROWNBACK

Here is what PPP says about Brownback

PPP's newest Kansas poll finds that Sam Brownback has continued to become even more unpopular in the last year, and that he slightly trails his Democratic opponent for reelection. Only 33% of voters in the state approve of the job Brownback is doing, compared to 51% who disapprove. That's down from a 37/52 spread when PPP last polled the state a year ago.

Brownback trails Democratic challenger Paul Davis for reelection by a 42/40 margin. Davis isn't particularly well known- only 41% of voters have an opinion about him one way or the other- so those numbers are more a referendum on Brownback than anything else. Davis leads largely because he is winning 23% of the GOP vote, a large amount of crossover support in this polarized political climate, while only 11% of Democrats plan to vote for Brownback.

“Kansas voters really don’t care for Sam Brownback and haven’t for some time now,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling.

According to conventional political wisdom, an incumbent at 40% is in definite trouble and there is no reason to think that the PPP poll is an outlier. Last October, SurveyUSA released a poll showing Brownback trailing Davis, who had just announced his candidacy.

Sam Brownback, who has served in Kansas as a Congressman, U.S. Senator, and now Governor, is in danger of being unseated after one term, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted for KWCH-TV in Wichita. ...the Democratic ticket of Paul Davis and Jill Docking edges the Republican ticket of Brownback and Jeff Colyer, 43% to 39%.

Of those who voted for Brownback when he ran for Governor in 2010, just 59% stick with him in 2014, and 25% defect to the Democrats. Though today Brownback leads 2:1 among Republicans, he trails 11:1 among Democrats.

In early February, the GOP leaked an internal poll from

Wilson Perkins Allen Opinion Research, [which] puts Brownback ahead of Democratic state House Minority Leader Paul Davis 42-31. If you're wondering why these mystery Republicans would leak a poll that has Brownback well below 50 and gives him middling 45-41 favorables,

ROBERTS
PPP writes

Pat Roberts has seen his net approval rating decline 12 points over the last year, in the wake of news media reports that he spends little time in the state. In February of 2013 we found him on slightly positive ground at a 31/28 spread, but now only 29% of voters approve of him compared to 38% who disapprove.

Roberts could be in trouble in the primary ... He starts out with a 49/23 lead over Milton Wolf, but a lot of that is simply a function of name recognition since only 24% of GOP primary voters are familiar with Wolf. And concerns about his lack of attention to the state ring through with Republican voters just as they do the overall electorate- by a 42/34 spread they think Roberts is more focused on being a Washington DC insider than he is in representing Kansas.

While PPP shows Democrat Chad Taylor trailing Roberts by 16 points, its shows Wolf and Taylor neck-and-neck at 33-32.

One has to wonder if some of the far right politicos in Kansas are kicking themselves for letting themselves be talked into signing up to the Roberts re-election effort. A year ago, PPP noted

Roberts' low profile could give him more trouble in a primary. Just 42% of Republicans say they would vote to re-nominate him, while 34% say they would prefer someone 'more conservative.' Those are pretty uninspiring numbers if a more fiery candidate wanted to challenge him from the right. Roberts has bigger leads over specific GOP alternatives we tested against him though- 21 points over Todd Tiahrt at 47/26, 31 over Tim Huelskamp at 53/22, and 36 over Kris Kobach at 55/19.

Remember, those results were before the controversy about Roberts "lazy-boy" residence in Kansas became public.

The conventional wisdom at this point seems to be that Taylor doesn't have much of a chance against Roberts, but that he might have against Wolf. I'm not so sure. Seems to me that the themes of Roberts not spending enough time in Kansas and being more interested in being a DC insider might just play in November.

KOBACH

The PPP poll is also encouraging for Jean Schodorf's chances of defeating the Secretary of Hate.

Do you approve or disapprove of Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s job performance?

31% Approve 34% Disapprove 35% Not Sure

If the candidates for Secretary of State were Republican Kris Kobach and Democrat Jean Schodorf, who would you vote for?

41% Kris Kobach 34% Jean Schodorf 25% Not Sure

Country Club #29: Time Jumpers Revive Western Swing

The Time Jumpers is a group of Nashville-based musicians who have gotten together to play Western Swing since 1998. Much like the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis jazz band, they started out of love of the music playing a regular gig at what had been a club's offnight. Country music superstar Vince Gill joined the band in 2012 and is featured on the group's album, the self-titled The Time Jumpers. In case you're wondering, this is a different song than the classic blues by Ray Charles (and others)"I'm Going to Move to the Outskirts of Town."

The Time Jumpers has a very nice web site and you can find more Time Jumpers videos at You Tube.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Country Club #28: Bruce Forman's Cowbop Renews Western Swing

Bruce Forman is an outstanding bopish jazz guitarist who has recorded a number of fine CDs. He played and toured with Richie Cole during 1978-1982 and has led his own dates for Muse, Concord, and Kamei. I own a number and have enjoyed his playing.I particularly recommend Forman on the Job.

Now, he is doing something very different and very cool. He has put together a group called "Cowbop," which he describes as "cowboy jazz" and "western bebop," it's an apt name since it not only incorporates bebop elements, such as quotes from Thelonious Monk tunes and bebop phrasings, but it is a smaller group than the traditional Western Swing conglomeration, the same as the evolution from swing to bop.

Cow Bop has recorded four CDs which you can order from their website.

Swingin' Out West (Blujazz, 2004)
Route 66 (Blujazz, 2008)
Too Hick For The Room (B4man Music, 2011)
Cowlifornia Swing (B4man Music, 2012)

Forman's Cow Bop isn't the only notable recent effort to extend and renew Western Swing. I'll take a look at an effort from Nashville next wee,.

Shame on Kansas for Refusing to Expand Medicaid

There will a protest in Topeka on Monday to demand that the state accept federal dollars to expand Medicaid to working Kansans. For details and to RSVP, click here.

Saturday, February 08, 2014

Country Club #27: Maddox Brothers and Rose

A couple of Woody Guthrie's songs have been country hits. One is "Oklahoma Hills" and another is "Philadelphia Lawyer." The latter was a hit for the Maddox Brothers and Rose, who were known as "America's most colorful hillbilly band" from the 1930s to the 1950s.

The Maddox family were sharecroppers in Alabama who traveled by hitch-hiking and hoping trains to California. They lived in poverty and worked in the agricultural fields from Arizona to Washington state before settling down in Modesto. They began performing musically, a local furniture store, sponsored a radio show, and in 1939 they piled in the family Model A, drove to Sacramento, and won a hillbilly music contest. In 1946, after the boys got home from the war, Maddox Brothers and Rose began recording on the 4 Star label.

Years later Rose explained how she joined the family band

In a 1996 interview, Maddox recalled that her musical career began just a few years later. Her brother Fred decided he had had enough of picking fruit for 10 cents a box and lined up a job playing music on KTRB radio sponsored by Rice furniture store in Modesto, CA. in 1937. Before agreeing to sponsor them Rice Furniture demanded the band have a girl singer. "They didn't know if I could sing or not but Fred wasn't about to lose that opportunity," Maddox said. "And he knew Mama wouldn't let him get a girl singer. So he said, "We've got the best girl singer that's ever been." He didn't tell him it was just an 11 year old kid. We went on the radio the next day, and we started selling that furniture like mad."

It's not clear how or when the Maddox Brothers and Rose added "Philadelphia Lawyer" to their repertoire or why they decided to record it in 1949. Guthrie had written it a decade earlier and performed it often on his California radio program, so they most likely heard it there. When the Maddox record was played for Woody by a record label man, he was extremely enthusiastic. "My ears wiggled with joy," he said.

Although her brothers settled down and left the music business, Rose continued to tour and record for many years. She even received a Grammy nomination for her 1994 album "$35 and a Dream."

Wednesday, February 05, 2014

Three Views of Cuba

Isbel Diaz Torres has a most interesting article "Who Cares About Cuba BesidesCubans" in Havana Times, an independent Cuban blog which reflects broad democratic left viewpoints.

Who Cares about Cuba Besides Cubans?

another group of Brazilians who uncritically totally identify with the institutional processes that evolved and are being developed in the island. Their unwavering support is displayed even in times of layoffs, golf courses, and state budget cuts.
Brazilian socialist revolutionaries.

Isbel Diaz Torres

Diaz Torres describes three groups of Brazilians he has recently encountered in a recent visit to that country. The first consists of capitalists, entrepreneurs eager to reap profits and unconcerned about workers, their rights, or democracy.

another group of Brazilians who uncritically totally identify with the institutional processes that evolved and are being developed in the island. Their unwavering support is displayed even in times of layoffs, golf courses, and state budget cuts.

In order to embellish their own ideologies with their middle class communist dreams and their anti-capitalist posture, these people “keep alive an idyllic image of revolution and justify any contradiction with arguments of the last century, with the US blockade as their faithful shield.

There is, however, another group that seems to be the minority, but in my opinion is much more ethical, serious, and decent. I’m talking about a part of the anti-capitalist left that has managed to balance its support for the gains made in Cuba after 1959 with a critical view towards the often contradictory policies and actions of the Cuban government.

Socialists of various political bents understand the depth of the changes in the Cuban social and political system of the last century, and also recognize the adverse effect of interventionist United States’ policies. However they don’t accept the undemocratic, authoritarian and recently pro-capitalist policies implemented by the Cuban government.