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The following are edited answers by area legislative candidates in contested primaries when asked whether they support a statewide public smoking ban. To read responses by other candidates, go to The Eagle's online Election '08 Voter Guide at vote.kansas.com.

Kansas Senate District 16 Republican

Will G. Carpenter: I believe in personal responsibility. If you ban smoking because of the increased costs of health care, then what is next? Banning obesity? Though smoking is one of the leading causes for the increased cost of health care and many cities and counties already have passed smoking bans in their own communities, the state should leave these decisions up to local units of government. Also, private businesses should have the right to make that decision themselves.

Ty Masterson: No. I'm a nonsmoker, but the choice to smoke is an individual liberty. Where is the logic behind funding state health care programs with tobacco money and then making tobacco illegal to use?

District 29 Democrat

There is a reason the psalmist warned, "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help" (Psalm 146:3).

It wasn't that he was cynical about humanity. It appears the writer observed that the best efforts of humankind were unable to produce the satisfaction people sought in earthly leaders.

Which brings us to the expectations surrounding Barack Obama.

It is a truism in politics that you are supposed to lower expectations in order to boost your political stock should you exceed them. Obama has done precisely the opposite. He has raised expectations so high there is only one way he can exceed them following his nomination in Denver. That is to climb to the top of a mountain peak, there to be transfigured and ascend into heaven.

No wonder Jon Stewart lampooned Obama's messianic persona on "The Daily Show," saying that while in Israel, he made a short visit to the manger in Bethlehem where he was born.

So the big housing bill has passed Congress. That's good news: Fannie and Freddie had to be rescued, and the bill's other main provision -- a special loan program to head off foreclosures -- will help some hard-pressed families. It's much better to have this bill than not.

But I hope nobody thinks that Congress has done all, or even a large fraction, of what needs to be done.

This bill is the latest in a series of temporary fixes to the financial system -- attempts to hold the thing together with bungee cords and masking tape -- that have, at least so far, succeeded in staving off complete collapse. But those fixes have done nothing to resolve the system's underlying flaws. In fact, they set the stage for even bigger future disasters -- unless they're followed up with fundamental reforms.

Before I get to that, let's be clear about one thing: Even if this bill succeeds in its aims, heading off a severe credit contraction and helping some homeowners avoid foreclosure, it won't change the fact that this decade's double bubble, in housing prices and loose lending, has been a disaster for millions of Americans.

After all, the new bill will, at best, make a modest dent in the rate of foreclosures. And it does nothing at all for those who aren't in danger of losing their houses but are seeing much if not all of their net worth wiped out -- a particularly bitter blow to Americans who are nearing retirement, or thought they were until they discovered that they couldn't afford to stop working.

Radical optimism is America's contribution to the world. The early settlers thought America's founding would bring God's kingdom to Earth. John Adams thought America would emancipate "the slavish part of mankind all over the Earth." Woodrow Wilson and George W. Bush preached their own gospels of world democracy.

Barack Obama is certainly a true American. In the first major foreign policy speech of his campaign, delivered in Chicago last year, he vowed a comprehensive initiative to "ensure that every child, everywhere, is taught to build and not to destroy." America, he said, must promote dignity across the world, not just democracy.

In Berlin last week, it was more of the same. Speaking before a vast throng, he vowed to help "remake the world." He offered hope that a history-drenched European continent could "choose its own tomorrow free from the shadows of yesterday." He envisioned "a new dawn in the Middle East."

Obama's tone was serious. But he pulled out his "this is our moment" rhetoric and offered visions of a world transformed. Obama speeches almost always have the same narrative arc. Some problem threatens. The odds are against the forces of righteousness. But then people of good faith unite and walls come tumbling down. Obama used the word "wall" 16 times in the Berlin speech, and in 11 of those cases, he was talking about walls coming down.

In Berlin, Obama made exactly one point with which it was possible to disagree. In the best paragraph of the speech, Obama called on Germans to send more troops to Afghanistan.

Memo to John McCain: You're probably kicking yourself right about now for goading Barack Obama into getting out to see the world.

Before you could say "photo op," the junior senator from Illinois was turning Obama Nation into what looked like Obama World.

You said Obama needed to return to Iraq, where he had not been in more than two years, and find out the real truth on the ground. You must have known trouble was afoot when Obama agreed to expand that idea into a fact-finding tour of the Middle East and Europe, too.

You must have known it was a good omen for Obama and, as such, bad for you when Obama joined some of our troops on a basketball court in Kuwait -- and sank a three-pointer. Sa-wish!

Ah, for the good old days, you must have thought, when Obama was awkwardly trying to bowl his way though the Pennsylvania primary.