Posted on 09/29/2014 6:39:14 AM PDT by george76
Republicans are scrambling to save a seat that they thought was in the bag.
Republican chances to win control of the Senate in the 2014 midterms, requiring a pickup of six seats, have taken a blow. Kansas, a state no one considered anything other than a safe hold for the party a few months ago, now appears to be slipping away.
After a contentious primary resulting in a victory for the 78-year incumbent Pat Roberts over tea party challenger Milton Wolf, things have gone steadily south for Roberts. Wolf refused to close ranks and endorse Roberts. A self-funded independent, 45-year-old Greg Orman, has now opened up a solid lead over Roberts after Chad Taylor, the Democrat, withdrew from the race, trailing badly in third place.
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Roberts has come under attack for many of the same things as Mary Landrieu in Louisiana — for effectively becoming a Washington, D. C., senator, and not a senator of the state.
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The lesson for Republicans after the ugly battles in Kansas and Mississippi is that maybe the Republican Party establishment needs to practice a kind of term-limits policing for some of its incumbents in order to avoid the very nasty primary fights that leave Republicans easier prey in the fall, and inject some fresh blood in the party. Serving in the Senate was never viewed by the founders as a lifetime job, like a Supreme Court justice. The state legislatures elected senators, so the advantages of incumbency in popular elections did not exist. But being senator has started to mean a lifetime job for quite a few in both parties. After a while, the residents of a state sometimes wonder who is serving and whom is served.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
What IS there to discuss in this race????
Orman is hardly an independent.
He is a big time lib who contributed to Dems including BHO and Al Franken.
But I thought once Pat Roberts fought off the primary challenge from radical, wacko Tea Party extremist Milton Wolf, he was a shoe-in, since he’s the moderate, reasonable, electable candidate?
You mean the GOP-E was wrong???
/do I need it?
Roberts is 78, well past retirement age. Question is did the DEM cross over votes and the RINOS do to Wolf what they did to McDaniel’s and TN Joe Carr? To get RINO lamar alexander reelected for the third time, when he promised 2 terms and out?
Since both RINO GOV bill halsam and lamar have no credible opponent, they win by default, this is not a issue of voting for the lesser of 2 evils. lamar only votes 38% conservative.
Both will do with out my vote.
This has nothing to do with all of this GOPe horesepoop.
Gov. Sam Brownback-—hardly a RINO-—is also behind in the polls.
What IS the matter with KS???????????????????????????
I don’t care if Roberts is on life support.
The goal is to replace Harry Reid.
Is Roberts perfect? Of course not!!!!
But a vote for Orman is vote for BHO and a vote for Reid.
Period!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ditto!!!
Could the news be slanting this? KS seems to be a sensible state to me. Yes, I’ve heard liberal opinions espoused out of there but still!
That’s the bigger surprise. Brownback lowered taxes across the board, but of course we’ve had non-stop hand wringing over how much the serfs have been able to keep. The KS Supreme Court is also requiring more and more money go to the schools (not directly of course - after the Legislature votes on funding and the usual suspects sue). So it’s been non-stop “no money for the children” BS for the last year.
To understand the Kansas Republican Party, you must understand Kansas History. They are the Free Staters. The most popular watering hole in uber liberal Lawrence is the Free State Brewery. Republicans in Kansas believe that they are personally responsible for freeing the slaves, without their sacrifices in Kansas, it never would have happened. This attitude has passed down through the generations with the result that the Kansas Republican Party has a sizeable proportion of liberals in their ranks.
They controlled state politics for many years because they held the balance of power. They would side with the Democrats when convenient, and they would blackmail the other Republicans to advance their liberal causes. They gave us two terms of Kathleen Sebelius.
Sam Brownback set out to do something about this. After he was elected Governor, he went after 12 notorious liberal Republicans in the Legislature. They all lost in the primary and the Kansas Republican party is no longer controlled by liberals, it is conservative and almost threw out Pat Roberts, who has a conservative voting record, but otherwise doesn’t care much about the state.
The defeated liberals are all mad as wet hens about this and have vowed revenge. They are joined with the teachers union and the Democrat party to defeat both Brownback and Roberts. Orman and Davis are their shills. Since the Democrat Party essentially doesn’t exist in this state, the only way this happens is through these has been liberal Republicans. Right now, they are being aided and abetted by many self proclaimed conservative purists who think that payback is in order because some Leawood doctor claimed that he belonged to the Tea Party. I voted for Wolf in the primary, but that was the end of it. Roberts and Brownback represent the interests of conservatives and they will get my vote.
Exactly.
This should be a no brainer.
Brownback is one of the most conservative governors in the nation. KS has among the lowest unemployment rates in the nation.
And btw-—Pat Roberts-—has one of the most conservative voting records in the US Senate. It is pure insanity to suggest he is a RINO IMHO unless the definition of RINO has changed in recent years.
The definition of RINO is whatever the soreheads want it to be. A RINO is someone who does not agree 100% percent with them and they have never won a race to decide who goes to buy the beer.
Wolf is a clown, not an “extremist”, an unqualified neophyte clown, with no record and no real ties to the “tea party”, he would be trailing Orman by 20 points right now.
You know who the RINOs are for? ORMAN! Roberts is a solid conservative.
Democrats and RINOs are for the democrats Orman, Davis, and Schodorf. Conservatives are for Roberts, Brownback, and Kobach, it’s that simple.
Lamar and Cochran are RINOs. Roberts is NOT, no matter what delusional liars say.
You know who the RINOs really love? Orman.
Thanks for the history lesson.
Point taken.
Roberts is also a top line conservative. There’s scant little about his voting record that would even hint at “RINO.”
Wolf lost the primary. It’s time to get behind Roberts, Kansas.
The Pat Roberts voting record matches that of Ted Cruz and is better than 90% of the current GOP members of the U.S. Senate. If he is a GOPe then so is Ted Cruz.
If the people of Kansas elect a phony Democrat wearing the mask of an Independent then they are fools who deserve their fate. Unfortunately that vote may be the key to the Dems goal of retaining Harry Reid as the Senate Majority Leader. Personally, I don’t like that idea.
“is also behind in the polls”
Precisely. Nothing in life is perfect. Least of all politics.
Back in the day we used to call RINOs Rockefeller Republicans. Republicans with really liberal voting records, mostly from the northeast. Senators like Lowell Weicker, Jacob Javits, Jim Jeffords, Arlen Spector, Edward Brooke, Olympia Snowe, Clifford Case, Charles Mathias, John Chafee etc.....I would hardly think a senator such as Pat Roberts should be categorized as a Rockefeller Republican or a RINO. Simply ridiculous.
Precisely!
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