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Attorney General debate still rolling as polls open

By JOHN HANNA
AP Political Writer

TOPEKA -- A noisy debate over abortion records remained the backdrop for a bitter attorney general's race as voters decided Tuesday whether Republican incumbent Phill Kline would serve a second term.

Democratic challenger Paul Morrison had made Kline's two-year pursuit of 90 patients' records from two clinics a key issue in trying to unseat the Republican, arguing that Kline had abused his office and invaded the patients' privacy.

Morrison's arguments resonated with Dean Birdsall, a 29-year-old student studying criminal justice at Washburn University in Topeka. He voted for the Democrat, saying afterward, ''I didn't like Kline at all.''

''I'm a registered Republican, but if I feel someone is doing something I don't like, I vote for the other person,'' he said.

The debate remained hot Monday -- and flared nationally -- because of Fox television's Bill O'Reilly, who continued to say he had information from records of Kansas abortions and to question the activities of Dr. George Tiller, who operates a Wichita clinic.

Similar statements during Friday night's ''The O'Reilly Factor'' led Tiller's clinic and another, operated by Planned Parenthood in Overland Park, to ask the Kansas Supreme Court on Monday to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate how O'Reilly got his information and Kline's role. They also want the court to seize the records Kline obtained Oct. 24.

O'Reilly said during his daily radio program Monday that Tiller ''wants the guy that's going to let him off the hook to win'' the attorney general's race.

''Despicable? Oh, God. It doesn't get worse,'' he told his listeners. ''Does it get worse? No.''

It was a wild finish to the nastiest race in Kansas politics in at least a generation. But the attorney general's contest wasn't the only one of note.

Five-term Republican Congressman Jim Ryun faced a national wave of anti-GOP sentiment and hoped it wouldn't sweep him out of his 2nd District seat of eastern Kansas. Democrat Nancy Boyda's campaign -- featuring a slogan of ''Had Enough?'' -- had Republicans worried enough that President Bush came to Topeka for a Sunday evening rally.

Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius was expected to win a second term comfortably over GOP challenger Jim Barnett. Her campaign dropped nearly $3.8 million on broadcast advertising in three months, compared with $434,000 for Barnett.

Polls opened at 7 a.m. in most counties and were to close at 7 p.m., though five in western Kansas are in Mountain time. Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh predicted that half of the state's 1.6 million registered voters would participate.

In Johnson County, which accounts for one of every five registered voters, early turnout was ''active,'' said Election Commissioner Brian Newby. However, he said, it's not clear if that's a sign that participation is heavy or that residents simply went early.

Newby said there were sporadic issues involving the county's touch-screen voting system. In a half-dozen locations, poll workers had some problems encoding cards that voters insert into each machine, he said. Because there were 300 encoders for 266 polling places, a few were forced to go temporarily to paper ballots, he said.

''We're going to have to go back to the county and ask for more of those,'' he said of the encoders. ''That's like the one choke point in our election.''

He added: ''Sometimes, just goofy things like hand lotion on a card will make it hard to read.''

One question was whether the negative tone of the attorney general's race would suppress turnout. And that tone continued Monday with the clinics' petition to the Supreme Court.

In Topeka, Marianne Spano, a 67-year-old retiree who cares for Alzheimer's patients, said the ads this year were uniformly negative. She voted for Kline, feeling he is looking out for the welfare of child victims.

As for Morrison, she said she objected to his ads: ''He's a bully, I think.''

The clinics' attorneys accused Kline of having a ''cavalier attitude'' about patients' privacy and claimed he couldn't be trusted to carry on a valid criminal investigation.

Pedro Irigonegaray, a Topeka attorney representing the clinics, called Kline's behavior ''shameful'' and said Fox should fire O'Reilly.

Kline has said he is reviewing the records to investigate crimes, including rapes of children, forcible rapes, incest, illegal late-term abortions, failure by doctors to report child abuse and making ''false writings.'' He also has said no one in his office provided any information to O'Reilly.

During a Wichita campaign stop, Kline called the clinics' request to the Supreme Court ''frivolous.''

Abortion opponents rallied quickly to Kline's side. Kansans for Life accused Tiller of seeking a ''personal prosecutor'' in case Morrison doesn't win the election.

Morrison campaign manager Mark Simpson said: ''Phill Kline has engaged in a serious violation of privacy by seeking out those records.