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Candidate’s 1998 Strip Club Visit Stirs Kansas Governor’s Race
The New York Times ^ | September 21, 2014 | Mitch Smith

Posted on 09/22/2014 11:26:18 AM PDT by centurion316

The Democratic candidate for governor in Kansas found himself on the defensive this weekend after acknowledging that he was caught up in a police raid of a strip club years ago.

The candidate, Paul Davis, said he was not arrested or charged in the incident and accused Republicans of “a desperate smear campaign.”

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Mr. Davis said Saturday during a meeting with campaign workers. “Nobody has ever accused me of any wrongdoing.”

Recent polling shows Mr. Davis ahead of the Republican incumbent, Sam Brownback, in the governor’s race, a lead based largely on many voters’ questions about Mr. Brownback’s handling of the state budget. But word that Mr. Davis patronized a strip club in 1998, which was first reported Saturday in a small Kansas newspaper, could prove damning in a socially conservative state where there have been recent efforts to restrict or outlaw those businesses.

“There’s still a strong strain of the Kansas electorate that looks at that kind of behavior — even going to a strip club — as very inconsistent with their religious values,” said Chapman Rackaway, a political-science professor ...

Politico drew national attention to the report, which was published in The Coffeyville Journal, a small newspaper in southeast Kansas that publishes twice weekly. The paper has no website but the story spread over social media sites, including Twitter postings that showed the front page of The Coffeyville Journal with the headline, “Dem Governor candidate present at drug raid in 1998.” Mr. Davis, 42, a longtime state representative who is the House minority leader, declined an interview request Sunday, but in a brief statement said he was a lawyer for the owner of the Coffeyville, Kan., club and was in the building when officers arrived.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Politics/Elections; US: Kansas
KEYWORDS: election; governor; kansas
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To: centurion316

I was responding to the comment the candidate made himself. I was pretty much saying it if was from the Republicans, they need to get a better deep background guy. Because they could do better.

It was a sarcastic comment.


41 posted on 09/22/2014 1:37:04 PM PDT by Vermont Lt (Ebola: Death is a lagging indicator.)
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To: Vermont Lt

I think that they are doing that on the Roberts campaign against Orman and there may be something worth finding in that race. I don’t know if Brownback is doing it, but I think that opposition research, at least at the Google level is standard practice these days. You have to do something to keep those young volunteers busy.


42 posted on 09/22/2014 1:47:34 PM PDT by centurion316
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To: Regulator

Its not clear that Brownback broke this story...

Anyway, I think this will hurt Davis with women in Kansas. I’ve never looked at demographics, but my hunch is that the average voter is over 40 years old, and a woman here in Kansas. And a lot of them a) don’t like strip clubs b) believe all sorts of illegal things happen in strip clubs.

BTW, this is not completely out of nowhere, as far as Brownback is concerned. When he first took office, he and the legislature came very close to passing ‘no touch’ laws that would have really damaged the clubs - to the point of putting them out of business. Ultimately, they decided against it, because it was anti-business...but its not like this is a subject Brownback has never discussed before.

When this broke, it was a bad day for Davis and a good day for Brownback.


43 posted on 09/22/2014 2:05:11 PM PDT by lacrew
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To: centurion316

Perhaps the NYT is reminding him to vote with the democrats OR ELSE.


44 posted on 09/22/2014 2:17:01 PM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: centurion316
“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,”

Not if you're in a strip club.

45 posted on 09/22/2014 2:19:02 PM PDT by Drew68
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To: liege

Yup. What’s good to attack Republicans with should be good to go after Democrats.


46 posted on 09/22/2014 2:19:14 PM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: Paco
most of us have been to a strip club,

Speak for yourself.

47 posted on 09/22/2014 2:22:18 PM PDT by NorthMountain
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To: Vermont Lt

Too funny!


48 posted on 09/22/2014 2:26:53 PM PDT by pleasenotcalifornia
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To: Regulator

Didn’t mean to make it sound that way. I was mixing my thoughts.

“Wrong place at the wrong time.” IS the lamest of excuses and is the protestation and common lament of most jailbirds. I just found humor in this Democrat candidate actually using it.

For fun I wish a reporter would ask him why he was calling a legal business “The WRONG place.” It reeks of a guilty conscience about something going on at the club.


49 posted on 09/22/2014 2:41:28 PM PDT by LeonardFMason (LanceyHoward would AGREE)
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To: centurion316

He was just doing “research”


50 posted on 09/22/2014 3:05:21 PM PDT by RightGeek (FUBO and the donkey you rode in on)
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To: V_TWIN

Chapman Rackaway is a leftist poli-sci professor who writes pro-RAT editorials for the KS papers, which are all leftist.


51 posted on 09/22/2014 3:23:07 PM PDT by ozzymandus
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To: Dr. Ursus

Yup. Hard to describe it to someone that hasn’t seen someone like that. Granted, she likely pegged the Hot/Crazy scale but I agree. Didn’t look real. Didn’t look surgical either.

Just a whole other level of physical beauty. Mentally? Probably a whole other level of ‘something else’.


52 posted on 09/22/2014 4:58:08 PM PDT by Norm Lenhart (How's that 'lesser evil' workin' out for ya?)
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To: centurion316

My bad, I skimmed the article, thanks for correcting me!


53 posted on 09/24/2014 8:20:38 AM PDT by Paco
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