That rule is that nothing is ever forgotten. No nuance of just halltalk, or anything more substantive, passes into the ether here.
It was the moderate House Majority Leader Don Hineman, R-Dighton, who reminded — apparently on an e-mail that was circulated a little more widely than he’d have liked — that moderate incumbents and candidates for the House need to watch what they say in terms of endorsing candidates for other office.
The specific, of course, is that Republicans who aren’t fans of the party’s hard-right conservative gubernatorial nominee, Secretary of State Kris Kobach, ought to be quiet about it. Don’t criticize Kobach, don’t contribute to his challengers, and don’t cross a party line with support or even compliments leading up to the general election.
Oh, and it probably doesn’t make good campaign sense to endorse an opponent to your party’s gubernatorial candidate…just because there are Republicans out there who consider an attack on one Republican an attack on all Republicans.
Yes, the Kansas House now is largely conservative Republicans, with Democrats No. 2, and moderate Republicans, maybe 25, maybe 30 depending on the day, coming in No 3.
Now, those moderate Republicans are just plain old Republicans on most days in the Statehouse. There are simple budget decisions, there are simple bills that maybe everyone in the House will support. And there are bills and issues that Republicans support and Democrats oppose.
But then there are those philosophically partisan bills that split Republicans, or, conservative Republicans from moderate Republicans and the chamber’s Democrats. Think school finance, expanding Medicaid (KanCare, as we call the contractor-managed health-care system) and social welfare issues.
Practically, every candidate who has invested his/her or his/her contributors’ money and time to a campaign ought to be narrowly focused on winning the seat. Once the candidate gets to the House, his/her vote counts just like everyone else’s but if you don’t get elected, you are restricted to visitor areas in the Statehouse, where you can’t even holler from the gallery on a voice vote.
Sound a little too simple?
Well, it’s not if you happen to be a moderate Republican who wants to get elected based on your campaign promises and goals, not necessarily a party platform or links to anyone else on the ballot.
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Not quite sure how this works on the doorstep, if a candidate is asked by the potential voter behind the screen door about others on the ballot and members of the candidate’s party.
Do you just say you haven’t met them yet, or that it doesn’t matter because you are going to represent the district to the best of your ability whomever winds up in the nice office on the 2nd floor of the Statehouse—the governor’s office.
Or, do you say that one of the nicer things about the electoral system is that votes are not made public?
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If this all sounds a little nit-picky, you might recall that many House candidates are new to the whole political process and will be new to the Statehouse and will be those folks looking around to see where the nearest restroom is. Just the simple campaign on whatever issues a candidate thinks are important is about where the campaigning can stop.
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Maybe it’s easier for Democrats who have a traditional Democratic candidate on the ballot and tend not to see as much intra-party squabbling in their House caucus meetings.
Syndicated by Hawver News Company LLC of Topeka; Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report—to learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit the website at www.hawvernews.com