It’s sad and more than just a little pitiful that after 34 years in Congress and three terms in the US Senate Pat Roberts is allowing his managers to resort to finger pointing in a desperate attempt to hold his seat in the Senate. This is exactly what’s so wrong about politics in this country today and exactly the reason why we need to elect Greg Orman to the Senate.
The statement yesterday from Senator Roberts’ campaign is, simply, false. In three places in his first four sentences, he refers to a LIST. Well, there was NO LIST, either in my statement on behalf of the organization, nor in statements from two of our members who asked to be heard on this occasion.
If they were referring to the list of “founding” members on the back of our brochure, they should have noted that it was out of date, because it contained the names of two members who are no longer living. Also, this would have been obvious if the senator’s staff would have just read the first four words of the statement I read at the conference and that was distributed to those assembled. Those first four words were: “The Board of Directors”.
The statement I made was on behalf of the Board of Directors of Traditional Republicans for Common Sense. There was no effort on my part to suggest that this represented our total membership, or even a majority of our membership.
Since our inception, we have always operated on the principal of consensus. In the survey of our 70-some members, only 7 indicated they would not want their name listed as an endorser of Greg Orman. Some of those, however, indicated they were going to vote for Greg, they just didn’t want their name to appear in opposition to Pat Roberts.
The fact that Roberts’ campaign found only three members of our group who wished to speak in support of his election is very surprising. Surprising in that the number isn’t higher. After his many years of associating with our members while they were part of the Kansas legislature, it would suggest that there should have been stronger bonds established between the two.
Most of our members, like many Kansans, have voted for Pat Roberts over and over. But, recent votes on a number of issues, the farm bill for instance, have caused them to re-think their support for the senator. Also, the one issue most cited as being the “dagger” was the senator’s vote to deny adoption of the International Treaty for Disability Rights, which had been championed by Bob Dole and with Senator Dole, in his wheelchair, there on the senate floor as he voted. That, for a lot of us, was the LAST STRAW. That vote would have cost him nothing, and for most of us it was a clear “slap in the face” to a great Kansan.
Finally, I noticed with some interest the entities listed as having endorsed the senator. Particularly, I was interested in the endorsement from NFIB, an organization of small businesses that I used to represent as the Kansas Director. Does their endorsement mean that every member of NFIB endorses Pat Roberts? Have they supplied us with a current list of members so we can check their choice for US Senator? OF COURSE NOT!
By Dr. Jim Yonally, chairman and founder, Traditional Republicans for Common Sense