Salina
Journal
10/22/2008
Over the next several days, the Journal will endorse
candidates for various local and state offices, plus president of the United States.
Endorsements are a longstanding newspaper tradition. We
welcome responses, and, of course, urge voters to state their preference with
their ballots.
The Journal's preference for the U.S. Senate is incumbent
Pat Roberts, who was first elected to the position in 1996. He was re-elected
in 2002 and now seeks his third six-year term.
Before election to the Senate, he served eight terms
representing the 1st District in the U.S. House.
In some ways, there are negative aspects to spending all
those years in Washington.
We are concerned about Roberts losing his independence.
But we can't argue the benefits Roberts has brought to Kansas as a result of
that longevity. He spearheaded funding to expand facilities at Fort Riley.
He played a key role in the establishment of the Biosecurity Research Institute
at Kansas State University,
putting KSU at the forefront of food safety and security research. He
co-sponsored successful legislation supporting rural health care.
Pressure from Roberts and others in the Kansas delegation helped force the
Department of Defense to rebid an air-refueling tanker contract after it was
wrongly awarded to Airbus, a European consortium.
We don't have room to mention all the other benefits Roberts
has brought to Kansas,
or figure up a total of the millions of dollars in federal money he has
funneled to his home state, or determine how many thousands of jobs his
programs have created or sustained.
Even without totals, we know the numbers are significant,
and the result of Roberts' work ethic and his nearly 12 years working the ropes
in the U.S. Senate.
Along with the direct benefits to Kansas,
Roberts should be returned to Washington
for political reasons. Republicans must hang on to every seat possible in the
Congress. Democrats will control both the House and Senate -- and probably the
White House -- after November elections. The GOP needs a strong presence to
keep Democrats in check, and Roberts is key to those efforts.
-- Tom Bell
Editor & Publisher
Senator
Roberts' re-election has also been endorsed by the Johnson County
Sun and the Pittsburg
Morning Sun.
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