Dave Franker, Jim Leach's opponent last year, notes:
"Thursday in the U.S. House of Representatives the George W. Bush FY06 federal budget, a budget that, as you have read at length in the past weeks, guts one progressive Democratic priority after another, was passed - barely - 218-214.
30 year Republican Congressman Jim Leach, who has carried Johnson County in each of the last 4 elections, once again (5th time in 5 years) supported the George W. Bush budget and its priorities in a close vote...
Leach will doubtless "fight" for one or two minor changes here or there in a federal budget that belies hundreds of Bush priorities, all the while repeating his oft self-proclaimed but meaningless "moderate" mantra.
This, in a nutshell, is the real rap on Leach. He throws liberals a lot of bones when it's meaningless, when the margin is 300 to 100. But when it's close, when it most matters, he's the Jim Leach who's been a Bush family ally for 35 years, back to the days he worked for George HW at the UN.
Switch just two votes, and that budget is a tie. And the 20 to 25 percent of Democrats who voted for Leach instead of Franker, the academic types who are all interested in international relations and want to reward Leach for a vote agains the Iraq war that while good was ultimately meaningless, need to examine the significance of this.
218 to 214 is the REAL Jim Leach. When push comes to shove, he's a Republican and he must go.
Politics
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