News of Donald Rumsfeld’s departure from the Pentagon was no surprise Wednesday to Kansas politicians and observers.

Congresswoman-elect Nancy Boyda capitalized on voter unease with Iraq in her campaign to defeat Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Ryun, a stalwart supporter of the war effort spearheaded by the secretary of defense.

“We needed to have a change to show this administration is ready to start working together,” Boyda said Wednesday. “A real obstacle to that would have been keeping Don Rumsfeld.”

President Bush nominated former CIA Director Robert Gates, a native Kansan who attended high school in Wichita, to replace Rumsfeld.

Other observers agreed it was time for Rumsfeld to leave office.

“The Iraq policy is a huge drag on the Republican party, and Rumsfeld is very strongly associated with that,” said Philip Schrodt, a Kansas University political science professor.

The move should clear the way for bipartisan talks about Iraq, said Allan Cigler, KU political science professor.

“How could you possibly believe that what we’re doing in Iraq was working?” Cigler asked. “And what we’re doing in Iraq was so identified with Donald Rumsfeld that I think it was probably incomprehensible that we could actually still have him as secretary of defense and reorient what we’re doing … I think it reduces the Democrat and Republican tensions over this whole business and makes it easier to sit down and talk.”

Burdett Loomis, another KU professor, agreed.

“The people spoke and, in this case, Rumsfeld responded,” Loomis said. “This really puts the exclamation point on any interpretation … that this was a referendum on Iraq.”