KS-Sen: Taylor drops out

[eric82oslo]

Let this move from R+9 (538) to D+9 now.

Edit: I meant I+9 of course.

The I/D tickets are gonna sweep Kansas and Alaska now. At least Kansas. Alaska is more of a toss up in both categories I guess.

[eric82oslo]

Isn't Orman to the left of Taylor anyway, politically?

According to that ideology chart we saw posted recently, he is way, way, way to Taylor's left.
Don't know how much truth there was to that though? According to it, Taylor was basically just as conservative as Roberts, which doesn't seem believable to me at all.

[eric82oslo]

Washington Post writes: "Orman, who used to be a Democrat and a Republican, has been viewed as a more viable opponent against Sen. Pat Roberts (R), who polls show is vulnerable. Orman has raised a lot more money than Taylor."

This is important for two reasons:

1) It shows that Orman isn't exactly a partisan Democrat as he's aligned himself with both parties in the past
2) He has raised a lot more money than Taylor (despite Taylor leading him in early polls)

Both these points seem to underline that he will be a stronger than usual candidate.

[eric82oslo]

Wow, I can't believe it. Here we have an unexpected interesting election. It's certainly a Toss-up race (who would've guessed a month ago?!).

Let's have Travis Childers dropping out now and supporting a some dude moderate hero, please!

(I'm saying this just in case I have some clairvoyant powers, as I posted this yesterday:

Nice. I hope KS Dems. do the same and endorse Orman.

)

It seems that the "worst summer ever" is producing more bipartisanship and cooperation across the aisle than we've seen for years, if not decades.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/29/summer-2014-was-the-worst-ever.html

[eric82oslo]

Nate has released his first comments on the upgraded race.

"But Orman had raised more money than Taylor — about $625,000 in individual contributions to Taylor’s $120,000 as of July 13 — and probably had more momentum, having recently received endorsements from a bipartisan group of legislators."

Now that's a bit of a money gap. More than five times as much in fact.

He also writes that Orman in the past has donated money to Al Franken, Scott Brown and Obama.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-senate-race-in-kansas-just-got-crazy/

"In this case, however, we have only one poll of the Orman-Roberts matchup (and it was from the polling firm PPP, which has a series of methodological problems and which surveyed the matchup when it was still just a hypothetical possibility). So the model comes out somewhere between the survey and the fundamentals rating. It projects a narrow 2-point victory for Roberts, and gives him a 56 percent chance of winning against 44 percent for Orman.

For all intents and purposes, that makes the race a tossup. But it’s also a totally wild guess. The model is designed to recognize that the outcome is extraordinarily uncertain when the polls and the fundamentals diverge so much. So the margin of error on the forecast is enormous — the 90 percent confidence interval on the forecast runs from a 20-point Orman win to a 23-point victory for Roberts."

[eric82oslo]

Any thoughts on the fact in the event of a tied Senate, Orman would have to be known as the guy who (by appearances) single-handedly throws the Senate to the Democrats if he caucuses with them? That would presumably make for an effective attack ad come the 2020 election and might dissuade him now. Then again, it's tempered by the fact it's six years later (meaning voters might care less and also Orman might willingly make that sacrifice in exchange for supporting the party he presumably wants to).

If he was the deciding vote for Democrats, he might follow through on his pledge to not vote for Reid (and maybe get King to join him). He'd probably make up for giving Dems the Senate by also being known as the guy that ousted Reid for someone like McCaskill or Heitkamp

I wonder if McCaskill or Heitkamp would even want the job. It would certainly make their re elections more difficult.

You're right. Kirsten Gillibrand would be the perfect choice. There's not even a 0.01% possibility that she wouldn't get reelected, even if she were majority leader, and I think she's pretty centrist/moderate.

[eric82oslo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb0wR1qCwyo

Great ad by Roberts campaign.

Don't know if it was great exactly, but at least it was funny, with Roberts screaming the hell out his lungs like the devil at Orman. At least Orman had the decency to look away and not just stand there and take his sh**t.

[eric82oslo]

It looks like a final decision has been made.

The official opinion (ruling) of the High Court says, and I quote :

"Taylor's petition for writ of mandamus is granted, and Kobach is ordered to comply with his clearly defined duty imposed by K.S.A. 26-306b(b). He shall not include Taylor's name on any ballots for the office of United States Senate for the general election on November 4, 2014."

In regards to the Democratic Party, being required to place a replacement on the ballot, the High Court says :

"With this determination, we need not consider the parties' numerous other arguments. Nor do we need to act on Kobach's allegation that a ruling for Taylor would require the Kansas Democratic Party State Committee to name his replacement nominee per K.S.A. 25-3905. The Kansas Democratic Party is not a party to this original action, and this court does not issue advisory opinions. Gannon v. State, 298 Kan. at 1119."

All great news in other words. Mark this day down your calendar, as it might be the day that decided the outcome of the 2015 Senate majority.

[eric82oslo]

"In response to the ruling, Kobach said a separate statute protects the “rights of Kansas Democrats” to have a replacement candidate. He said he would move the mailing date for absentee ballots to Sept. 27 and that the chair of the Democratic Party has been informed she has eight days to select a replacement candidate."

Loser.

[eric82oslo]

The two men tried to appear chummy: Dole calls Roberts “my go-to guy,” while Roberts calls Dole “a mentor of mine, a friend of mine, a brother of mine.”

But theirs is hardly a brotherly relationship. In late 2012, Dole personally urged Roberts to support a U.N. treaty banning discrimination against people with disabilities, and came onto the Senate floor in his wheelchair to plea for passage. Roberts, siding with tea-party-backed senators, voted it down.

“People thought, ‘Gosh, why couldn’t he have done that for Bob?’ ” said former GOP senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker, whose seat Roberts now holds. Among some prominent Republicans in Kansas, she said, “that just triggered an emotional disappointment with Pat. I think that carried on and has not been changed.”

“He’s basically furniture in the Senate, and the people in Kansas know that,” said national GOP strategist John Weaver, a former McCain adviser. “You could give the average Kansan 24 hours to come up with something Pat Roberts has done in the Senate, and after 24 hours, even the crickets would be standing there befuddled.”

On the stump, Roberts exhibits “this grumpy-old-man persona,” said Burdett Loomis, a professor of political science at the University of Kansas. “This is a classic guy who, at age 78, is running for a fourth term in the U.S. Senate and does not have any great rationale.”

As Roberts campaigned with Dole at a shopping mall in Dodge City this week, a man in the back of the crowd asked, “Can you tell us why Virginia would get three senators and Kansas only one?”

Roberts stayed silent and let Dole answer by noting that each state has two senators.


A great article today in Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-kansas-longtime-gop-sen-pat-roberts-faces-doubts-as-he-scrambles-to-hold-seat/2014/09/24/4d288dbe-4329-11e4-b47c-f5889e061e5f_story.html

[eric82oslo]

Greg Orman, the independent U.S. Senate candidate in Kansas, told The [Kansas City] Star’s Editorial Board Monday that he could not name a Supreme Court justice that he would have opposed had he been in office.

Way to go. If only more politicians were thinking like Orman, US politics might not be the single most hated thing in the world, inside as well as outside of the US.

[eric82oslo]

Orman continues to use Roberts' attack ads to bolster his own nonpartisan/independent message: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2GqyWbmQr-A

Good ad.

That's actually a really great ad. Very sympathetic.

The only thing I don't like about Orman is his voice, which kinda gets on my nerves sometimes. And maybe his head-shaking, which is getting a bit old. If you didn't know better, one might mistake him for having Parkinson's disease or something.

[eric82oslo]

(Watching the debate) Pat Roberts comes off as a huge asshole.

No surprises there. Did he try to make Orman look like a communist?