Follow the money is wise advice.
The Kansas Chamber of Commerce, for example, spent more than $231,000 in July alone trying to defeat a dozen Republican state senators seeking re-election. The biggest donor to the chamber’s effort remains Wichita-based Koch Industries, Inc., which gave the C of C PAC $125,000 last month alone. That’s more than half of the total raised. All from one family-owned company.
Why, Kansans should ask, do the Koch brothers spend so much money trying to buy Kansas government? The $125,000 is just a fraction of their 2012 contributions to radical right candidates.
While questions are being asked, Kansas businesses should also wonder why the state chamber, which pretends to represent the businesses and industries of all of the state, would accept such large contributions from a single company. Doesn’t it know that doing so gives the impression that the Kochs own the chamber like they own Americans for Prosperity? Bad public relations.
Follow the money and compare that $231,000 spent in a single month to the $81,000 the Kansas Traditional Republican Majority PAC has raised since the beginning of the year. The Traditional Republicans — Denise Apt of Iola is among them — is supporting the senators the state chamber is attacking. The 50 former state leaders on the Traditional GOP membership list were the leading decision-makers in the state just a few years ago. They organized this year, with Rochelle Chronister of Neodesha as president, to support and encourage candidates who support adequate funding for education, good highways, medical care for low-income families, a strong justice system and a healthy environment.
They are using sweet reason rather than vicious political ads to make their argument for moderation. That may be a mistake. In today’s politics the motto appears to be, if it isn’t negative, it won’t fly.
FOLLOW THE MONEY and learn that a political action committee formed by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has spent $11,000 on behalf of the radicals who are opposing the moderate senators seeking re-election.
Kobach says he is backing candidates who want to do something about voter fraud in Kansas. All of those he supports also oppose the moderates under fire — who are as opposed to voter fraud as is Mr. Kobach. Despite all of his bluster, Kobach has yet to demonstrate that Kansas voters cheat at the polls. His crusade is nothing more than a ploy to attract votes.
Kansans, however, may feel that they have been the victim of fraud when they see the state’s chief election officer using his tax-supported office for partisan political purposes. The secretary of state oversees all elections. One would hope and expect the office would be run even-handedly. Kobach’s flagrant attacks on a dozen sitting senators because they are Republican moderates should worry all Kansas Democrats and independents as well as it does the immediate targets of his partisanship.
With Kobach in charge, can any Kansas election be completely fair to all candidates?
Follow the money, tell your friends what you find — and hope against hope that Kansas voters still aren’t for sale.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
