Kansas Senator Pat Roberts Re-ignites Residency Controversy

 

With the Kansas primary only a month away, it  looks like Senator Pat Roberts has "Lugared" himself with what the right-wing media outlet Breitbart,com  called a "Freudian slip" in an interview on radio station KCMO and reported on July 3 in the DC insider newspaper The Hill saying he returns home to Kansas “every time I get an opponent”  and proclaiming that he doesn't measure his voting record by "how many times I sleep wherever it is."

Back in February Roberts got caught in a controversy with an interview in the New York Times

In an interview, the three-term senator acknowledged that he did not have a home of his own in Kansas. The house on a country club golf course that he lists as his voting address belongs to two longtime supporters and donors — C. Duane and Phyllis Ross — and he says he stays with them when he is in the area. He established his voting address there the day before his challenger, Milton Wolf, announced his candidacy last fall, arguing that Mr. Roberts was out of touch with his High Plains roots.

“I have full access to the recliner,” the senator joked. Turning serious, he added, “Nobody knows the state better than I do.”

"We’re not going to get Lugar’d," Roberts adviser David Kensinger told the Times, in a reference to long-time Indiana Senator Richard Lugar who lost a 2012 primary to a Tea Party challenger, who in turn lost to a Democrat Joe Donnelly in the general election.


Roberts fits the Lugar profile, so Kensinger concern was understandable. Roberts is getting up in years; he's 77. And he's been a Congressman and Senator since 1980 and before that, starting in 1967, a D.C. staffer for Kansas Senator Frank Carlson and Congressman Keith Sebelius.   

Roberts made some astute moves to avoid Lugar's fate.  He lined up almost every conceivable challenger, virtually every state Senator and Representatives for an endorsement.  He shifted his voting record from conservative to very, very conservative.

Despite this, Roberts got a primary challenger:  Milton Wolf, a distant cousin of President Obama and radiologist.  Wolf is being backed by many of the same Tea Party organizations and media that backed Dave Brat's upset of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Mississippi Senate challenger Chris McDaniel.  In fact, Wolf has gone on national right-wing shows like that of Mark Levin to back McDaniel and attack not only Roberts, but the state's other Senator Jerry Moran, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign.

There have been signs that Roberts is vulnerable. A 2013 poll, for example, found that just 42% of Republicans say they would vote to re-nominate Roberts, while 34% say they would prefer someone "more conservative."  And, a February  2014 PPP poll show that Kansans disapproving of Roberts by a 38 to 29 margin.

But Wolf hasn't caught on.  The February PPP poll found Roberts leading Milton Wolf 49 percent to 23 percent among GOP primary voters. A June Survey USA poll showed Roberts ahead of Wolf, 56-23 percent.

One reason is that Wolf, though he is sometimes an effective sound biter, has some big problems of his own,which are highlighted on "The Real Milton Wolf" tumblr created by the Roberts campaign.  The tumblr doesn't mince words promising to document.

character flaws, missteps, and flat-out lies. We assure you that the incredible array of evidence below will leave no doubt in your mind, Milton Wolf is not only unvetted, untested, and unelectable, but a completely discredited candidate.

Personally, I hope that Roberts and Wolf have a full out slugfest in the nice month and that votes come to see the former as an out-of-touch, D.C. insider, carpetbagger and the latter as an unethical, right wing nut job.

Then, perhaps Kansas can elect its first non-Republican Senator since  George McGill was re-elected in 1932.  The Democrats have a potentially strong candidate in Chad Taylor.


In a future post, I'll take a look at vanity austerity millionaire independent candidate Greg Orman threatens to split the anti-Roberts (or anti-Wolf) vote.