Today’s edi­to­r­i­al from The Par­sons Sun:

The race is on

Vot­ers can tell when there’s a real race by the big guns that come out, and we in the 2nd Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict have a real race. Chal­lenger Nan­cy Boy­da is tak­ing anoth­er run at Con­gress­man Jim Ryun, and the one-time Repub­li­can has Ryun search­ing for help.

The proof is in an invi­ta­tion to a Ryun fundrais­er, and the big gun is Vice Pres­i­dent Dick Cheney. The whole point of the effort is to help Ryun rake in the dough so he can out­spend Boy­da, which should be inter­pret­ed as buy­ing his seat in Wash­ing­ton for anoth­er two years.

The price to attend? A cou­ple can get in for the mod­est con­tri­bu­tion of $200, but the real mon­ey comes when egos deter­mine they want to par­tic­i­pate in the “VIP Pho­to Oppor­tu­ni­ty” at a whop­ping $1,000 each. Just think: A real pho­to, stand­ing next to one of the most con­tro­ver­sial vice pres­i­dents of the Unit­ed States, to hang on the wall.

Loy­al Repub­li­cans who are intrigued with the pho­to should remem­ber that by buy­ing the pho­to op they are also con­tribut­ing to Ryun’s cam­paign chest. While Ryun obvi­ous­ly has his strong sup­port­ers, there is a huge base of Repub­li­cans who wish he would just go away. Feed­ing his cam­paign chest isn’t the way to make that happen.

Recent polling by the Boy­da camp puts her a hair above Ryun, which is say­ing a lot in a strong Repub­li­can state. Oust­ing an entrenched con­gress­man, regard­less of which par­ty is doing the vying, is extreme­ly difficult.

But Boy­da is tena­cious in her deter­mi­na­tion to give every­one in the 2nd Dis­trict a voice, not just a select few of the same ilk. She is extreme­ly bright and able to debate the issues unlike any chal­lenger Ryun has faced. In fact, when side by side, Boy­da shows those who are real­ly lis­ten­ing Ryun’s inabil­i­ty to devi­ate from catch phras­es or to move beyond pablum. While Boy­da eager­ly seeks out ques­tions and dis­cus­sions, Ryun sim­ply takes ques­tions that he sel­dom real­ly answers.

Ryun has nev­er real­ly embraced all of his con­stituents, as demon­strat­ed dur­ing redis­trict­ing efforts in 2002. This is the man who tried to move sev­en coun­ties of South­east Kansas into west­ern Kansas’ 1st Dis­trict — which would then have reached 500 miles diag­o­nal­ly across the state, cast­ing us into obscu­ri­ty. That should not be forgotten.

This is a real race. Boy­da’s strength in the polls, and Ryun’s need to lure in cam­paign dol­lars by drag­ging the vice pres­i­dent here, are proof of that.

- Ann Charles
Edi­tor and publisher

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Boy­da. Nation­al polling shows rur­al vot­ers to be key to shift­ing Con­gress, and the Par­sons Sun reach­es a lot of those voters.

Now is the time to pitch in and help Boy­da out. Donate or vol­un­teer your time.