Kansas and Colorado Governors Offer Test: Live from The Roasterie CCXXXII: August 4, 2014

I find it interesting: even now so many punches get pulled and so many reporters are unwilling to even note specifics of the enormous gap between Brownback's promises and reality.

That media failure is certainly one of the things that's wrong with Kansas:

Mark Barabak: Side-by-side, Kansas and Colorado governors offer test of strategies: "Kansas... the spare flatness of the prairie relieved only occasionally by a small town or lonely farmhouse...

...the shrinking population mostly white, aging and politically conservative. People here still nod and smile at strangers they pass on the sidewalk. Colorado... its outdoorsy lifestyle beckoning the fit and fleece-vested to abandon Denver's office towers and escape the crowded freeways into the Rockies. A burgeoning Latino population has helped shade the state from politically red to purplish blue. You can legally enjoy your favorite microbrew and preferred cannabis.... An unswerving activist Republican, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, and a seemingly chastened, managerial-minded Democrat, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. They differ not just in philosophy but, up for reelection in November, their way of facing voters’ judgment.

In Kansas, Brownback has steered the state far to the right and kept his foot pressing hard on the accelerator.... When Republicans didn’t go far enough, Brownback took the unprecedented step of campaigning against several moderate lawmakers of his own party, replacing them with legislators more tailored to his conservative mold. The results have been controversial, to say the least.... More than 100 GOP lawmakers, past and present, have defected to Brownback’s Democratic challenger, House Minority Leader Paul Davis....

Brownback, who was elected governor in 2010 after two U.S. Senate terms, is nonetheless serene. Asked about second thoughts or regrets, he named only one, wishing he received better, fairer--by his estimation--coverage in the Kansas media. He insisted that big tax cuts will eventually lead to an explosion in job creation and population growth, rewarding his patience and vindicating his strategy to reverse what has been a steady, decades-long exodus from rural Kansas. 'These things take time to mature', Brownback said in a recent interview, promising more of the same assertive conservatism if reelected in November....

By contrast, Hickenlooper has tapped the brakes in Colorado after a legislative session that propelled the state too far left, too fast for the political comfort of even some fellow Democrats.... Of the two, Hickenlooper appears the better positioned to win.... If so, the distance between next-door neighbors is likely to grow even greater...