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FRIDAY, JULY 27, 2012
75 CENTS
POLITICAL DIVIDE MAKES UNITY ELUSIVE
Americans torn over government usefulness
Mark Duncan/Associated Press
Ben Curtis/Associated Press
A diver practices on the 10-meter platform at the Aquatics Center at Olympic Park on Thursday in London.
Deep into the Great Depression, Americans cried out for help, elected Franklin D. Roosevelt in a 1932 landslide and marshaled in the era of big government. Facing a stagnant, inflation-torn economy in 1980, they rose up in a backlash against that big government by sweeping Ronald Reagan to victory. Today, despite an ailing economy struggling to recover from the worst recession since the Roosevelt era, people show no signs of uniting behind any bold new approach. They split along many lines — income, This back and forth, geography, age, ideology. Older talking past one people see govanother, two sides that ernment with a big role in easing keep failing to meet, economic pain. characterizes much of Younger people the American mood are less inclined to look to Wash- today. … These ington. Conservapolarized opinions have tives think paring been chiseled into the the federal debt is a top priority; American psyche. liberals, less so. McClatchy dispatched journalists to a dozen states and commissioned a national poll to plumb the mood and temper of the nation, as its people approach one of the most crucial elections in generations. At stake is a path toward two distinctly different Americas. The yen for unity is evident: 86 percent said the economy is a top priority, with support cutting across all ideological and partisan lines. Eighty percent also named the job situation as a top priority. And three of every four people think it’s more important for government to seek compromise. But here’s the 2012 catch: 72 percent of Democrats thought the government should Please see MOOD, Page 2A
Let Olympic Games begin Opening ceremonies are tonight for the Summer Games in London Eagle news services
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Joel Ryan/Associated Press
The last Olympic torchbearer Tyler Rix, from London, lights the flame onstage at the Olympic Torch Relay Concert in Hyde Park on Thursday in central London.
INSIDE ■ The weekend lineup of televised Olympic events, 3A ■ More Olympics news and notes, 1C, 5C
SENATE DISTRICT 26, REPUBLICAN PRIMARY
Dick Kelsey has been a pastor, owner-operator of a treatment camp for drug- and alcohol-addicted youth, and an eight-year member of the Legislature. But he says there’s one thing he won’t be – a rubber stamp for somebody else’s agenda. And that has put the conservative Republican senator from Goddard in an unaccustomed position – lumped
Summer
Kerschen is anti-abortion, won’t criticize Brownback of the plans and the governor’s activities, to I think just highlight himself,” KerIf there are two things that Rep. schen said. “He Dan Kerschen wants you to know claims to be a ‘work about his effort to unseat incumbent together’ person. In Sen. Dick Kelsey, it’s that Kerschen is his ad he says that he 100 percent anti-abortion and that he works together to get thinks the incumbent shouldn’t critthings done. How do icize Gov. Sam Brownback as much Kerschen you get things done as he does. when you spend “He (Kelsey) pledges to be conservative and pro-business … but yet he criticized the tax plan, vocal criticism Please see KERSCHEN, Page 8A
in with Senate moderates targeted by a conservative insurgency, led by Gov. Sam Brownback, that seeks to remold the Senate in the image of the more reliably pro-Brownback House of Reprekelsey sentatives. And that, Kelsey says, is the big
©2012 The Wichita Eagle and Beacon Publishing Co., 825 E. Douglas, Wichita, KS 67202.
BY DION LEFLER The Wichita Eagle
Please see KELSEY, Page 8A
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WHAT THE CANDIDATES SAY ABOUT ISSUES, 8A
Kelsey believes a leader has a duty to speak out BY DION LEFLER The Wichita Eagle
ONDON — Remember the 2,008 Confucian drummers at the opening of the Beijing Games? In London, look for a flock of sheep, three cows, two goats and 10 waddling ducks. Where there were choreographed Chinese philosophers reenacting the invention of the printing press, expect James Bond in a helicopter. And where dragons lurked in the Bird’s Nest stadium, watch out for a Voldemort vs. Mary Poppins smack down inside the glistening new Olympic Park. But besides the undeniable stamp of British whimsy on a sporting event so often viewed in reverential terms, perhaps the biggest difference at Friday’s opening ceremony of the 2012 London Games will be the Olympic stadium itself. In stark contrast with the monument to millennial greatness that was the Bird’s Nest in Beijing, the humbler main venue nestled inside a reclaimed urban wasteland in East London is largely collapsible, with a comparatively tiny permanent core of just 25,000 seats. As a global audience prepares for nearly three weeks of competition set against the backdrop of one of the world’s most recognizable cities, it
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BY DAVID LIGHTMAN Eagle Washington Bureau
Fireworks explode over the Olympic Stadium during a rehearsal for the opening ceremony at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
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