By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  February 22nd at 11:00 PM  | 

KU professor Stephen Ware:  ”This violates basic equality among citizens, the principle of one-person, one-vote. The current system elevates one small group and treats everyone else like second-class citizens.” Kansas is the only state in the union that grants lawyers a majority control of the judicial selection process.  I can’t imagine how it’s constitutional.  10,000 lawyers control 2.8 million Kansans.  In short, it doesn’t matter | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  February 22nd at 10:20 PM  | 

PART 4 OF 4 about poll in Gardner, Kansas.  You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, and part 3 here. In August 2011, I polled Kansas’ second-largest city of Overland Park, a suburb of Kansas City, MO.  We learned, in part: 67% of voters wanted to balance the city budget through cuts in spending, and only 23% wanted higher taxes. Asked a different | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  January 12th at 11:20 PM  | 

PART 3 OF 4.  You can read part 1 here, and part 2 here. Paul Ibbetson interviews Benjamin Hodge on KRMR 105.7 FM about poll in Gardner, Kansas from Benjamin Hodge on Vimeo. Related links: – http://www.redstate.com/benjaminhodge/2012/12/29/gardner-news-runs-article-on-poll-about-property-taxes-and-mayors-election-in-fast-growing-kansas-city-suburb/ – http://libertylinked.com/posts/10138/full-poll-results—gardner/View.aspx “The Conscience of Kansas” runs daily at 5-6 p.m. in central Kansas on 105.7 FM “The Patriot,” the station that carries Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, and | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  January 2nd at 03:28 PM  | 

PART 2 OF 4.  You can read Part 1 here. Important note: this poll was done in early December 2012, long before Kansas Senator Pat Roberts voted to increase taxes on 77% of households, to increase taxes on “more than 80 percent of households with incomes between $50,000 and $200,000,” to increase the death tax, to increase taxes by $41 for every $1 in spending cuts, when | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  December 29th at 03:36 AM  | 

PART 1 OF 4. Click here for the full results and methodology to our 22-question poll of likely April 2013 voters in Gardner, Kansas. The city of Gardner, Kansas, is a suburb of Greater Kansas City and one of the fastest growing cities in the state.  In 2010 to 2011, the entire state grew at a 0.6% rate, while Gardner experienced almost three times the | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  December 17th at 01:15 AM  | 

KU professor Stephen Ware:  ”This violates basic equality among citizens, the principle of one-person, one-vote. The current system elevates one small group and treats everyone else like second-class citizens.”   Earlier this month, I posted an op-ed written by Stephen Ware in the Lawrence Journal-World.  Ware is a professor of law at the University of Kansas.  I encourage you to read that article.  In part, | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  December 14th at 07:01 PM  | 

US Senator Pat Roberts, who chose to join Sam Brownback in cheerleading in 2009 for Kathleen Sebelius to run our national healthcare, is currently running for re-election. I think Roberts is very vulnerable to a primary challenger, especially if it’s one of two men:  First District Congressman Tim Huelskamp or Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Recently, the PAC I chair performed a poll the Kansas City | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  December 14th at 07:00 PM  | 

Charles Krauthammer: But there is another factor at play: having a job in the first place. In right-to-work states, the average wage is about 10 percent lower. But in right-to-work states, unemployment also is about 10 percent lower. Higher wages or lower unemployment? It is a wrenching choice. Although, you would think that liberals would be more inclined to spread the wealth — i.e., the | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  December 13th at 06:00 AM  | 

Background: “John Toplikar’s encouraging victory in the election for Johnson County Commission, part 1 of 2″ at Redstate. Interview: “The Conscience of Kansas” runs daily at 5-6 p.m. in central Kansas on 105.7 FM “The Patriot,” the station that carries Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity. Listen live to 105.7 FM by clicking here.  Here is the link to the station’s Facebook page, and to its Web | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  December 11th at 02:19 AM  | 

Congratulations to Commissioner-elect John Toplikar.  Out-raised 15 to 1 and out-endorsed, Toplikar beat the incumbent 67% to 33%. The political action committee I chair in Kansas got involved in one race this cycle: the 6th district county commission race in Johnson County, Kansas.  The race involved two functional incumbents, both Republican:  a conservative former Commissioner John Toplikar, and liberal Commissioner Calvin Hayden, who beat Toplikar by | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  December 9th at 06:00 AM  | 

Good luck with this. I guess I am still surprised with the mainstream media — that left-leaning executives and investors (who want to make money) hire very liberal news management (who are more concerned about advancing an agenda than making a profit for the company), and that they all would rather go out of business instead of simply making a product that most Americans would | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  December 4th at 10:58 PM  | 

KU professor Stephen Ware:  ”This violates basic equality among citizens, the principle of one-person, one-vote. The current system elevates one small group and treats everyone else like second-class citizens.” The Kansas judicial selection model is unlike any other state.  Like many states, Kansas uses the elitist, undemocratic ”Missouri system,” where law-degree-holders (not necessarily the same thing as those who know more about the law) have far more | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  November 30th at 01:42 AM  | 

In the 2002 movie “Signs,” Colleen Hess gave her youngest son Merrill a cryptic, deathbed command to “swing away.”  Only years later, with his own life at risk, did Merrill understand what this meant.  With confidence, Merrill “swung away.”  The challenge was unclear, but it was was large and right in front of him, and Merrill could not and did not miss.  Merrill “swung away” with | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  November 5th at 01:00 AM  | 

As people smarter than me have said, such as RedState’s Dan McLaughlin and The Weekly Standard’s Jay Cost, there is no precedent for BOTH the national polls being correct, and Barack Obama winning re-election.  If Obama wins, either national polls have been wrong about Independent voters, or Obama sets a new precedent. Here are national exit polls for 2000, 2004, and 2008. In 2000: George W. Bush won | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  November 1st at 10:18 PM  | 

 The Topeka Capital-Journal joined Democratic Senate leader Anthony Hensley in: Promoting tax and spend policies that damage businesses Insulting a major business after it leaves town Stating clearly that they expect businesses to ask their approval and permission before making decisions Proposing anti-business “solutions” — picking winners and losers by taking money from most businesses, and giving “incentives” to a small number of businesses Sending | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  October 17th at 09:53 PM  | 

Above is the audio for a phone call about John Toplikar, the Republican choice and fiscal conservative choice for Johnson County Commission. It’s in southwest Johnson County, a suburb of Greater Kansas City. The district has about 50,000 voters, which is larger than a state senate district in Kansas. The call was paid for by Kansans for State & Local Reform, which I chair. Audio: | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  October 16th at 12:47 AM  | 

From the political left and the right, non-Kansans sometimes look at Kansas politics and scratch their heads.  One word explains much of it:  ”McClatchy,” which owns the rabidly anti-cultural conservative Wichita Eagle and Kansas City Star.  Fortunately, the Internet has almost eradicated the problem, and I can tell you that in the KC metro area, conservatives simply ignore The Star, in part because we don’t need | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  October 12th at 09:20 PM  | 

Brief update:  At the end of the article, I’m going to pre-emptively write a rebuttal to unfair and misleading attacks about John Toplikar, the kind that appeared at the original location to the video below (at mrcTV.org), and which were written by anonymous commenters who won’t go on the record.   Above is the audio for a phone call about John Toplikar, the Republican choice | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  September 16th at 02:06 AM  | 

Poll: Three out of four likely voters say reporters try to help candidates.  And by a 59-18% margin, voters say Barack Obama received better coverage than Mitt Romney. Click here or below to listen to the audio of Paul Ibbetson’s interview of Benjamin Hodge.   Broadcast date August 31, 2012. Click here to read the Rasmussen poll. Some of the questions: When covering a political | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  September 13th at 10:42 PM  | 

It seems like every mainstream media outlet says that “moderates” or “moderate Republicans” lost in the Senate primaries of Tuesday, August 7. Nope. Listen to the interview between Paul Ibbetson, host of 105.7 FM’s “Conscience of Kansas” program, and Benjamin Hodge about the major conservative victories over the far-left “Republicans” in the Kansas Senate in the August 7 primary elections. “The Conscience of Kansas” runs | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  June 29th at 12:18 AM  | 

Jack Cashill on Facebook: The head of the Kansas National Education Association is encouraging teachers to register as Republicans in the primaries to elect “moderates” in districts where Democrats don’t have a shot. Although one would hope that teachers would transcend lowball politics, what catches the reader’s eye is the failure of the KNEA guy to mention the words “children” or “parents” anywhere in his lengthy email. | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  June 13th at 03:34 PM  | 

Secretary of State Kris Kobach is on a state-wide tour, to educate voters and answer questions about the Kansas Secure and Fair Elections Act of 2011 (SAFE Act). The tour wraps up in Leavenworth and Overland Park on Thursday, June 14.  Visit www.GotVoterID.com to learn more.  From the Web site:   Thursday, June 14, 2012 Overland Park, 9:30-11 a.m. M.R. and Evelyn Hudson Auditorium, Nerman Museum | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  June 3rd at 08:10 AM  | 

I realize that far more — thousands, probably — people will know about this Kansas City Star article because I mention it on this blog, but I will use this opportunity to reiterate how thoroughly dishonest McClatchy-owned newspapers are, and to highlight the pathetic record of Kansas Senate Vice President John Vratil, who is in the fight of his political life. Brad Cooper is a | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  May 14th at 03:20 AM  | 

I’d like to wish all mothers a “Happy Mother’s Day,” and I would like to share with you a poll released by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, demonstrating the strong support all around the country for school vouchers at the K-12 level. Interestingly, mothers of K-12 children support school vouchers even more than the average American. Below, I will highlight some of the findings of the poll. | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  May 3rd at 02:28 PM  | 

George Will:  ”This year Jon will spend his birthday where every year he spends 81 spring, summer and autumn days and evenings, at Nationals Park, in his seat behind the home team’s dugout. The Phillies will be in town, and Jon will be wishing them ruination, just another man, beer in hand, among equals in the republic of baseball.”   I have a family member | Read More »