GOP Candidates take umbrage at request

When they said to self-isolate, the Kansas GOP must have heard “self-immolate.”

Those of you who merely want a secure and prosperous nation — with a limited and accountable government, and judges and justices who adhere to the Constitution rather than the prevailing political winds — take note: Kansas Republicans seem hellbent on losing retiring Pat Roberts’ U.S. Senate seat, which they’ve held for nearly a century. And that could very well tip control of the chamber, and much if not all of Washington, D.C., to Democrats.

You can get pumped up about voting for Donald Trump again, but if he loses the Senate along with the House, there’s not much point. Most of his agenda, notably to include conservative jurists who respect your right to be largely left alone, will hit a brick wall. That’s how important the Senate is.

Moreover, if Kansas Republicans lose this seat, the political and social earthquake will be felt from coast to coast. Democrats, especially if it means they win the Senate, will hold the Kansas Senate race up as a national referendum on their agenda.

It would, in reality, be a statement on Kansas Republicans’ solidarity, or the lack thereof.

While Kansas Democrats rally behind one candidate to replace Roberts, state Sen. Barbara Bollier, and cover her up to the eyeballs in campaign cash, here’s the blueprint Republicans are following:

Everybody runs for the rare and potent open seat, regardless of one’s chances, giving the best-known and least-electable candidate — failed 2018 gubernatorial contender Kris Kobach — the inside track to the GOP nomination.

Then have a big old public fight when it’s suggested that the horde be culled for the sake of the herd.

Pruning the apparent eight-person Republican field of its medium-sized branches is what state GOP Chairman Mike Kuckelman had in mind when he wrote second-tier candidates Susan Wagle and Dave Lindstrom Thursday, asking them to exit the race. That would leave the two top-tier candidates, 1st District Congressman Roger Marshall and former Kansas Secretary of State Kobach, to battle it out.

Clearly the idea, and it’s a good one, is to isolate and beat Kobach, the widely reviled and mostly ineffectual populist firebreather who would bring the match to the party’s self-immolation — as he did in losing the race for governor.

Problem is, Kuckelman’s letter and phone calls appear to have had the opposite effect, instead convincing state Senate President Wagle and former Johnson County Commissioner Lindstrom to dig in their heels and stay in the race.

In fact, Wagle claims Kuckelman is targeting her specifically, and only using the companion letter to Lindstrom as cover. While Kuckelman’s letters to both Lindstrom and Wagle asked them to leave the race, Wagle says only she was asked to do so by phone. Lindstrom campaign supporter Dave Owen confirms that.

“He adamantly asked me to walk away and get out of the race,” Wagle said of Kuckelman’s call.

In contrast, Owen says, Kuckelman’s written request to get out “blindsided” Lindstrom.

So, one candidate feels targeted, the other blindsided.