Topeka ? On a sidewalk in downtown Topeka this week, two national reporters stood outside a restaurant waiting for Greg Orman to arrive. He was scheduled to hold one of his “roundtable” talks with local small business owners, but the start time was being moved back.

Orman, the independent candidate for the U.S. Senate, knew the reporters were there waiting. He was in a side room in the shop next door, purposely avoiding them while waiting for the other guests to show up.

It’s not often one sees a candidate for federal office go out of his way to avoid being in the national spotlight, but it’s a routine practice now for Orman, a relative newcomer to politics who is more concerned about introducing himself to Kansas voters than in making headlines in Politico or on the national wires.

Orman chuckled when he was asked about that scene a day later. “Our campaign has always been about getting our message out to the voters of Kansas,” he said.

Privately, his aides put it even more bluntly: Few of the voters he’s trying to reach even read those outlets, and all those reporters want to talk about is strategy, the national implications of his campaign and, of course, the details of his financial disclosure report — conversations in which he has nothing to gain.

It has become a common enough occurrence with his campaign that some national reporters have become irritated at not being able to gain direct access to him. And it’s a campaign style that stands in stark contrast to that of Sen. Pat Roberts, the three-term incumbent Republican whom Orman is trying to unseat.

While Orman runs a hyper-local campaign, shunning the national spotlight in favor of small meetings with local business groups, and even appearing on local community TV talk shows, Roberts in recent weeks has turned his campaign into a national referendum, bringing in such GOP luminaries as John McCain, Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul to make public appearances endorsing him.

And on Thursday, Roberts unveiled a new TV ad featuring former Sen. Bob Dole rallying Kansas Republicans behind Roberts.

“The stakes are high and the choice is clear,” Dole says in the ad.

Dole was first elected to the Senate in 1968, the same year Richard Nixon was elected president. He served until stepping down in June 1996 to focus on his own, ultimately unsuccessful bid for the White House.

That was the same year Roberts was elected to the Senate to fill the Senate seat vacated by Nancy Landon Kassebaum. And it was 18 years ago, which means this year there will be thousands of new voters casting their first ballots in a major election who either weren’t yet born, or were too young to even remember Dole ever being a senator. By the same token, they also can’t remember a time when Roberts wasn’t one.

Some have suggested it’s a gamble for Roberts, who was harshly criticized during a tough primary campaign over his long tenure in Washington and his close ties to the Republican Party establishment. Kansas University political science professor Patrick Miller says the focus on national issues and the appeal to older voters probably makes the best sense for Roberts.

“If you’re Pat Roberts, you need election to not be about you,” said Miller, who teaches about survey research, public opinion and political behavior.

Miller noted that after 18 years in the Senate, Roberts has low job approval ratings, and even lower personal approval ratings. So his main task is to appeal to the Republican Party base, which tends to be older and more focused on national issues, Miller said.

Kansas GOP officials agree. “I think Roberts has his campaign going on all cylinders now,” said state GOP director Clay Barker. “The reason they’re nationalizing it is to get those base Republican voters. A lot of them don’t like Obama; a lot don’t like the idea of (Senate Democratic Leader) Harry Reid staying in charge of the Senate.”