Overland Park ? They say it’s a legitimate political difference. Their detractors say it’s a gimmick.

Whatever their reasons, a husband and wife from suburban Kansas City could wind up facing each other this November for the same seat in the Kansas House.

Jeff Ippel is a Republican, involved in a three-way primary race. His wife, Pam, is unopposed in the August Democratic primary.

State party leaders say they can’t remember the last time a husband and wife ran for the same office.

Pam Ippel, whose platform emphasizes health care and funding for education, said she decided first to run for the open seat in the 48th Kansas House District.

“The more Jeff thought about it, the more he thought he’d have a better chance,” she said.

“Better ideas,” said her husband, who is running on a conservative platform of small government and fewer illegal immigrants.

But conservative Republican Jeff Colyer, a physician and former candidate for Congress, says the Ippels’ real goal is to siphon away votes from his campaign to ensure the nomination of GOP moderate Sherrelyn Smith.

“Personally, I think it’s a fraud,” Colyer said. “It’s a deliberate strategy of confusion.”

Republican Rep. Eric Carter, who is giving up the seat to run for state insurance commissioner, agreed.

“It’s an absolute sham,” Carter said. “They’re trying to confuse voters and manipulate the process.”

And while Johnson County Republican Party Chairman Doug Patterson didn’t impute any ulterior motives to the Ippels’ dueling campaigns, he called it a bad idea.

“If they’re serious about the race, it defeats their credibility,” Patterson said. “It’s just one of those cute little things that belong in the weird news section.”

The Ippels and Smith denied any collusion.

“I do not know them and have not known them,” Smith said. “There’s absolutely no truth to it.”

But if there is a plan to pull votes away from Colyer, one political observer said, it would be a case of conservatives having one of their own tricks pulled on them.

“It’s about time the moderates started pulling this stuff,” said Kansas State University political science professor Joe Aistrup. “Conservatives have been running stealth candidates for years.”

The Ippels have two children of voting age. So who gets the nod there: Mom or Dad?

“I’ve asked them,” Jeff Ippel said. “They said they’re going to look at the issues.”