Kansas City, Mo. — Former Gov. Bill Graves will return to Kansas to support moderate Republicans facing tough primary fights that could determine the fate of the state Senate.
Graves, who now lives in Virginia, will make stops next week in Johnson County, Wichita and Salina to stump for Senate incumbents who are battling more conservative Republicans in the Aug. 7 primary, The Kansas City Star reported Thursday.
The visits come as current Gov. Sam Brownback has started endorsing more conservative Republicans as the two sides wage a battle for control of the Senate.
Brownback's agenda has largely won over the House, but skeptics in the Senate have blocked him on such issues as labor law, picking judges and education finance reform.
Derrick Sontag, state director of Americans for Prosperity, a Washington-based group that advocates for tax cuts and smaller government, said Graves' planned visits represent "the old guard."
"They may say it, but they don't really believe in a limited government," Sontag said "Their actions don't back up their rhetoric at times."
Graves served as governor from 1995 to 2003, and political observers believe he brings political and fundraising credibility to moderates who are up against Brownback's conservative backers, which include Sontag's group and the Kansas Chamber of Commerce.
Despite earlier signs he would stay out of the primary elections, Brownback has quietly asserted himself by endorsing conservatives. He appeared at a fundraiser for several freshmen House candidates in Johnson County in June.
His return shows that moderate Republicans know the battle for the Senate has turned fierce.
"The moderates who once roamed the plains very freely are now down to a very limited amount of pasture," said Joe Aistrup, a political science professor at Kansas State University. "If they don't step it up and raise the money necessary to compete against the likes of Brownback, the chamber and Americans for Prosperity, their days are numbered."
Comments
Hooligan_016 10 months, 1 week ago
Ah, AFP, the premier corporate cronyism advocate.
CheneyHawk 10 months, 1 week ago
Yep - AFP = KOCH.
DillonBarnes 10 months, 1 week ago
The GOP is dividing themselves more and more.
sourpuss 10 months, 1 week ago
A good indication about the state of the state is when former governors don't even want to live here.
mommatocharlie 10 months, 1 week ago
Gee--and all this time I thought he left because he was offered a job in another state, not because he didn't want to live in Kansas
yourworstnightmare 10 months, 1 week ago
This just shows how far to the extreme right the modern GOP under the tea party has become.
Vote third party in Kansas. Vote democrat.
consumer1 10 months, 1 week ago
Ha ha ha ha THat is too funny! vote democrat Ha ha haha. LOL!!
somedude20 10 months, 1 week ago
by somedude20
consumer1 10 months, 1 week ago
Is this part of the new liberal propaganda machine, trying to associate yourselves with "Scientist"??? as if that were going to make your argument more valid???
somedude20 10 months, 1 week ago
Science gets in the way of your "god." Your "god" tells you good ole boys what to do (Brownback, for one). Science bad, "god" good! Caveman smash!
justoneperson 10 months, 1 week ago
this is about primary elections, not the general election. would you prefer a conservative Republican in the general election or a moderate Republican?
for those [middle-of-the-roaders] that like to gamble, perhaps a more conservative Republican.
but if 'they' don't want to take a risk this time around, and think there's a shot that a Republican might win the general election, vote a moderate Republican in the primary.
Orwell 10 months, 1 week ago
Sherriene Jones-Sontag: Brownback's press secretary.
Derrick Sontag: state director, AFP–Kansas.
Other viewpoints need not be considered.
yourworstnightmare 10 months, 1 week ago
Kansas in effect now has three political parties: tea party extremists, traditional republicans, and traditional democrats.
It is astonishing, but the traditional republicans and the democrats have more in common than do the tea party and the traditional republicans.
To all traditional republicans out there: you are being purged from your own party. Join forces with the democrats to forge a centrist party that can bring sanity back to Kansas politics.
1southernjayhawk 10 months, 1 week ago
Calling the tea party "extremists" is an real exaggeration. They represent about the only common sense left in our leadership.
DeckDoctors 10 months, 1 week ago
It always puzzled me as to why Pro-Gay Special Rights people like KSLIB call conservatives a name depicting an act that only the Pro-Gay Special Rights groups actually do...
itwasthedukes 10 months, 1 week ago
Name calling... nothing extreme in your ideology. I love it.
DeckDoctors 10 months, 1 week ago
You're talking in circles. No one calls themselves teabaggers unless people in your circle do. None of the conservatives nor Tea Party Members call themselves the derogatory name you and your ilk have tried to be cute about when denigrating Patriotic hard working Americans. If you liberals want to be gross, continue, but don't try to apply your activities to conservatives.
Katara 10 months, 1 week ago
"The first big day for this movement was Tax Day, April 15. And organizers had a gimmick. They asked people to send a tea bag to the Oval Office. One of the exhortations was "Tea Bag the Fools in D.C." A protester was spotted with a sign saying, "Tea Bag the Liberal Dems Before They Tea Bag You." So, conservatives started it: started with this terminology. But others ran with it and ran with it."
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/to-teabag-or-not-thats-still-the-question-for-conservatives.php
by Katara
jkilgore 10 months, 1 week ago
What you call "common sense" is a clear distortion of the word. Americans for Prosperity, if allowed to run our country for one month, would bring about the kind of civil unrest that you see in third world countries. The AFP is a Darwinian, race-to-the-bottom group of pseudo-intellectuals who simply represent greed incarnate.
kuguardgrl13 10 months, 1 week ago
"Common sense?" There's no sense to anything Tea Party. They are extreme right so-called "Christians" that hate everyone who is not white, Christian, and wealthy. Their brand of church is one of hate. Jesus showed love to all who accepted him. Tea Parties are hardly even Republican anymore. They advocate for government control of our personal lives but would give free reign to corporations. I ask my fellow democrats to support the moderate republicans to bring sense and compromise back to Kansas.
Agnostick 10 months, 1 week ago
Meanwhile... just up the road a piece...
http://www.omaha.com/article/20120711/NEWS/707119881/1694
consumer1 10 months, 1 week ago
Bad for the taxpayer good for the trucking industry. I wonder what kind of bill he wants passed in order for his allegience to brownback?
consumer1 10 months, 1 week ago
Keep watching and when you realize how stupid you are then you can apologize.
Paul R. Getto 10 months, 1 week ago
Should be a long, hot summer getting ready for the primary. If the Senate goes dark too, the state will suffer for a generation or two before it recovers.
Budgets_Smudgets 10 months, 1 week ago
Won't be long at all, its over in less than a month.
Jayhawk1958 10 months, 1 week ago
Graves was a great governor and unified the state. And I'm a democrat. I think he was very fiscally sound and we had a huge budget surplus during his tenor.
mommatocharlie 10 months, 1 week ago
I think you mean tenure
Jayhawk1958 10 months, 1 week ago
Tea Baggers=New KKK
DeckDoctors 10 months, 1 week ago
Jayhock 1958 your ignorance is showing again. The KKK was started by Democrats not Republicans. A higher % of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act than Democrats. Also your liberal leader Robert Byrd was a leader in the KKK, and never was a Republican in the Senate a KKK member. Better get your facts straight before embarrassing yourself further. The Tea Party = Early American Patriots
itwasthedukes 10 months, 1 week ago
BINGO!
StirrrThePot 10 months, 1 week ago
The Tea Party = Early American Patriots
This isn't 1776, and the early American Patriots would be ashamed. At least they should be.
TheSychophant 10 months, 1 week ago
You obviously don't understand history. Until the seventies, the south was full of Yellow Dog Democrats who voted democratic simply out of tradition, as during the civil was the democratic party was pro slavery. Conservative southerners have since been disabused of that tradition and align themselves mostly with the republican party. There was once a time when there was a huge split in the democratic party--much like there is in the Kansas republican party--between the traditional FDR democrats and the so-called Dixie-Crats.
bartstop 10 months, 1 week ago
Tea Party = Early American Patriots?
LOL LOL LOL LOL!
That's what Koch Industries wants you to think.
Early American Patriots would be flabbergasted at the thought of war for profit.
DeckDoctors 10 months, 1 week ago
Why are liberals so non-sensical, exaggerators or worse? Show me one Tea Party Event where the topic was war for profit? They support the Constitution and Freedom from over-reaching, over-spending government like your Dear Leader purports.
DoubtingThomas 10 months, 1 week ago
Then why were they sporting assault rifles at peaceful, public, political rallies?
Orwell 10 months, 1 week ago
The "Southern Strategy" in the late 1960's was an all-out GOP effort to get all the racist white Democrats in the south to turn Republican as a reaction to the passage of civil rights legislation by a Democratic Congress and President.
It worked. And the cynical Republican efforts to gain support through appeals to bigotry are as strong, as transparent and as shameful as ever.
Agnostick 10 months, 1 week ago
The Tea Party = Early American Patriot wannabes!
There. Fixed it for ya.
vertigo 10 months, 1 week ago
Conservatives voted against the Civil Rights Act. Moderates and liberals voted for the Civil Rights Act.
The control of the Republican party is being fought between those on the right side of history and those on the wrong side of history.
Pastor_Bedtime 10 months, 1 week ago
Be careful, Bill, or you'll be tarred and feathered and run out of town as a Socialist these days.
Armored_One 10 months, 1 week ago
As much as everyone complains about career politicians, why does NO one ever vote for the newcomer, the very few times one of them shows up?
Agnostick 10 months, 1 week ago
One need only read a page or two of DeckDoctor's archive to realize the bottomless depths of his/her hypocrisy. By writing "FAIL" on our president's forehead, my best guess is that the good doctor is projecting.
pizzapete 10 months, 1 week ago
It's good to see Bill Graves coming back to support some moderate Republican candidates. I remember Graves was a good governor not so much by what he did, but by what he didn't do. Anytime a politician is not making headlines it's generally a good thing. I really hope the Republica party can get back to basics (more towards the center) and come up with some new ideas to help our economy.
average 10 months, 1 week ago
Absolutely absurdly late don't you think? Fer Frank's sake, man, advance voting for the primary (aka the only election that matters in KS) starts in less than a week. AFP has already mailed their end-of-the-game smear hit flyers on staunch Repub stalwarts. And Graves is talking about fundraising and organizing? That was April buddy. Sorry you missed it.
merrill 10 months, 1 week ago
No jobs Brownback = More jobs lost!
Repubs have put their voters out of work,med insurance & 401ks = why vote republican? Brownback has been part of this fiasco.
The past three republican presidents have killed the economy w/supply side economics with Brownback support.
First off it would be wise to never vote republican again.
The largest hits to employment and the economy whether being laid off,wages and benefits reduced or the USA corporation simply left the country came under republican administrations in the past 30 years.
This was not because USA industry was in dire straights. It was a direct result of reckless supply side economics and the desire for greed.
I say USA employment exodus began with the introduction of Reaganomics.
Reasons: 1. Mergers 2. Hostile Takeovers 3. Leveraged Buyouts 4. Free Trade Agreements
During this same 30 year period millions upon millions more jobs were lost to fraud of sorts in the home loan industry which effectively ruined the economy twice in a 30 year period.
Reagan/Bush Savings and Loan home loan scandal which killed the economy and cost the USA millions of jobs. http://rationalrevolution0.tripod.com/war/bush_family_and_the_s.htm
Bush/Cheney Home Loan scandal killed the economy and cost the USA millions of jobs The Bush/Cheney Home Loan Wall Street Bank Fraud cost consumers $ trillions, millions of jobs, loss of retirement plans and loss of medical insurance. Exactly like the Reagan/Bush home loan scam. Déjà vu can we say. Yep seems to be a pattern. http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2009/0709macewan.html
Bush/Cheney implied many financial institutions were at risk instead of only 3? One of the biggest lies perpetrated to American citizens. Where did this money go? Why were some banks forced to take bail out money? http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/10/good_billions_after_bad_one_year
All of above ultimately translate into millions upon millions upon millions of USA job losses. Big time layoffs are the end result. These jobs lost go abroad with tax codes that prevent taxation on profits made abroad from USA big name corporations. These millions upon millions of jobs have never come back to the USA.
Brownback was there in the beltway supporting this nonsense economics. Now he is doing it in Kansas. No jobs Brownback = More jobs lost!
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