From Insight on the World, 1997 (short­ly after his first election):

Insight: Has your lack of polit­i­cal expe­ri­ence been a problem?

Jim Ryun: No. In the cam­paign that was a strength. Part of our cam­paign was to go door-to-door talk­ing to peo­ple instead of spend­ing time in forums, tele­vi­sion or radio. And the com­ment we heard most often was, “You’re not a typ­i­cal politi­cian. You answer our ques­tions. We like that.”

From the Atchi­son Dai­ly Globe:

I have repeat­ed­ly con­tact­ed U.S. Rep. Jim Ryun’s office to express my opin­ion and ask that he con­sid­er a point as my rep­re­sen­ta­tive. I kept on because I think a rep­re­sen­ta­tive should rep­re­sent the peo­ple of his or her dis­trict. Whether it was a con­cern for edu­ca­tion, children’s ser­vices, senior health ser­vices or the appro­pri­ate place for the arts in edu­ca­tion, there would always be an e‑mail response try­ing to jus­ti­fy why he vot­ed with Pres­i­dent George Bush’s agenda.

I have not­ed the vot­ing records of oth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives: Some in Kansas vote to rep­re­sent the peo­ple in their dis­trict! I would like to have one that is, at the very least, able to jus­ti­fy a vote by some­thing oth­er than par­ty line.

That is why I am vot­ing for Nan­cy Boy­da to replace Jim Ryun in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. From her expe­ri­ence, Nan­cy Boy­da knows how to deal with med­ical agen­cies. It is time for a change, a pos­i­tive one from a per­son whose only claim to com­pe­ten­cy is that he ran a mile well!

Martha Claflin

Atchi­son

Vote Boy­da for a bet­ter future for our children

U.S. Rep. Jim Ryan has bur­dened our chil­dren and grand­chil­dren with a $7 tril­lion debt.

He has sold our trust to Tom Delay and the lob­by­ists on K Street.

We need intel­li­gence, integri­ty and inde­pen­dence to address the prob­lems of debt, med­ical care, ener­gy and education.

Nan­cy Boy­da has all these attrib­ut­es. Your vote for her is a vote for a bet­ter future for you and your chil­dren and grandchildren.

Mar­jorie C. Bishop

Atchi­son

From the Man­hat­tan (KS) Mer­cury, 10 years later:

In the fall of 2005 in the after­math of Hur­ri­cane Kat­ri­na, I sent a let­ter to my elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives with some sug­ges­tions for real­lo­cat­ing fund­ing to aid bad­ly-need­ed Army Corps of Engi­neers’ projects in the affect­ed areas of the Gulf Coast. The funds under dis­cus­sion had already been appro­pri­at­ed, so the sug­ges­tions were mere­ly for reallocation.

The response I received from Rep. Ryun’s office was a form let­ter telling me that he was always inter­est­ed in cut­ting tax­es and thank­ing me for my input. Since my let­ter had noth­ing to do with cut­ting tax­es, it seemed to me that some­one in his office had just failed to read it. So I sent it again, along with a hand-writ­ten com­ment on the bot­tom of his form let­ter, ask­ing him to please read it and respond appropriately.

The next response was iden­ti­cal to the first. There was noth­ing about my con­cerns, but some gib­ber­ish about tax-cut­ting and thanks for my input. So I repeat­ed my response as well, again send­ing back a com­ment on the bot­tom of the form let­ter, point­ing out how it seemed that nobody in the office could read and respond appro­pri­ate­ly. I asked again for a coher­ent and rel­e­vant response from my elect­ed representative.

The next response was iden­ti­cal to the first and the sec­ond. In oth­er words, three sep­a­rate attempts to com­mu­ni­cate with Jim Ryun’s office were extreme­ly unpro­duc­tive. At this point, con­clud­ing that my input real­ly was­n’t impor­tant to the con­gress­man, I ceased try­ing to communicate.

The les­son from this one-sided attempt at com­mu­ni­ca­tion seems to be that Rep. Ryun is not capa­ble of pro­cess­ing ideas from his low­ly con­stituents and may not be capa­ble of even read­ing a sim­ple let­ter and dic­tat­ing a focused response. The vot­ers in this dis­trict deserve a rep­re­sen­ta­tive who lis­tens to all of the peo­ple and not just to the cor­rupt lead­ers of a cor­rupt Congress.

After 10 years of this sort of “rep­re­sen­ta­tion,” it is cer­tain­ly time for a change. Nan­cy Boy­da is get­ting my vote in this elec­tion. Please trust her with yours as well.

David A. Rintoul

How times change.