Congressional Briefing
Wall Street Journal: Boyda turns right to keep seat
Posted Friday, June 8, 2007
Wall Street Journal: Boyda turns right to keep seat
The Wall Street Journal
Nancy Boyda, suggesting - as the headline says - that she is
taking conservative positions in Congress in order to hang onto her
(formerly Republican) seat.
Kevin Helliker starts off:
align="right">Freshman Rep. Nancy Boyda of Kansas recently joined
95 Republican lawmakers signing a letter attacking amnesty for
illegal immigrants. She remains opposed to gun control even in the
wake of the Virginia Tech shootings. And she touts her credentials as
a decades-long Republican.
Today, the 51-year-old Ms. Boyda is a Democrat. But you often
wouldn't know it as she gears up to run for re-election in November
2008. With Republicans aggressively attacking her, and two
Republicans already seeking her seat, she is positioning herself as
independent. She plans to keep the word "Democrat" off her yard signs
and rejects assistance from the Democrats' national congressional
campaign committee.
Next year's battle for Congress is well under way, even as
presidential politics are getting most of the attention. Ms. Boyda's
success will help determine whether the Democratic Party can keep
control of Congress, and show how firmly it has planted new roots in
conservative corners of the country where it made surprising gains
last fall -- places like Kansas, Indiana, Kentucky and Texas.
Some other highlights from the article:
- "Following the defeat (in 2004), Ms. Boyda felt called to join the
- nistry. But after talking with her pastor and the Methodist bishop
- Kansas, she concluded that God was calling her instead to make
- other run for Congress. ... Rep. Boyda says she doesn't wear her
- ligion on her sleeve and doesn't believe God ordained her to win,
- st to run. She says she believes that inserting religion into
- vernment or vice versa hurts both institutions."
- "The campaign made local newspapers its primary mass-media vehicle.
- ing their home computer, the Boydas created a 12-page newsletter
- lled with family photographs and articles outlining the candidate's
- sitions. Then they paid 26 mostly rural newspapers to carry it as
- insert in weekday editions, to avoid the clutter of Sunday papers.
- e cost: just $93,000. "Anybody who thinks that people don't read
- wspapers anymore doesn't live in a small town," says Mr. Boyda, 62."
- "She has faced some bare-knuckled attacks as Republicans try to
- dermine her. In February, press releases from various Kansas
- publicans accused the Democratic-led Congress and Rep. Boyda in
- rticular of eliminating funding for capital expenditures at two
- litary bases in Kansas. The accusation prompted newspapers across
- e state to write editorials attacking the Democratic-led Congress,
- ten singling out Rep. Boyda for criticism. 'Losing this money would
- ve a dramatic impact not only on the bases at Fort Riley and Fort
- avenworth but on the state's economy,' said a Feb. 11 editorial in
- e Topeka Capital-Journal. ... In fact, the new congress did approve
- se spending, and the Kansas forts started receiving it this spring.
- p. Boyda won a corrective editorial in the Capital-Journal. 'Turns
- t, those Republican charges were wrong, not to mention deceptive,'
- id the paper, whose editorial board had endorsed Mr. Ryun in 2006."
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