WICHITA — Fifty years ago, Wichita school board member Dan Glickman turned to his wife and declared interest in running for the U.S. House.

“She said, ‘You don’t have a chance. You don’t have a shot,’ ” he said, recounting a campaign that would precede his 18 years of service in Congress representing the Wichita region.

The Kansas Democrat defeated eight-term incumbent Garner Shriver, a low-key Republican with the misfortune of running for reelection in the post-Watergate era. Glickman’s rookie run for Congress didn’t feature a mountain of cash — he raised a mere $100,000. He attributed success, in part, to relentless shoe-leather campaigning and knocking on 45,000 homes in the district.

“I don’t know if that could happen today, because you need a message, you need money, you need time and you need luck,” he said at an event Saturday sponsored by the Sedgwick County Democratic Party and Wichita State University Young Democrats.

Fast forward 50 years, Glickman said, and the imperative was for Democrats to win control of the U.S. House in 2026. Three of Kansas four congressional seats are held by Republicans, but the Kansas Legislature could redraw maps to make it difficult for Democratic U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids to win reelection next year.

Glickman said Democratic control of the House would bring more balance to the federal government because the GOP currently had simultaneous hold of the House and Senate in the second term of President Donald Trump.

“We’ve got to elect a Democratic Congress,” Glickman said. “I’m not going to tell you it’s going to be easy. One of the reasons why is because, perhaps, our messaging isn’t right.”

Appeal to rural voters

Glickman said Democrats shouldn’t be a party of culture warriors. The agenda should reflect meat-and-potatoes economic issues that included health care, education and employment, he said. The objective in Kansas, he said, must be to expand Democrats’ base from population centers such as Johnson County and nominate candidates more relevant to interests of rural Kansans.

“We cannot win without appealing to rural, small-town America,” said Glickman, who served as secretary of agriculture under President Bill Clinton. “There’s a lot of raw material there. I don’t know if they’re going to go through with this, but the president is proposing to give … $25 billion to the government of Argentina so they can sell more beef into the United States.”

Trump’s proposal has been condemned by U.S. livestock producers who earned solid returns on beef sales at the same time domestic grain farmers suffered a period of low market prices and high input costs.

The president’s plan to lower grocery prices with imports could be an opportunity for Democratic candidates to speak with rural voters about a topic central to survival of their communities, Glickman said.

“Focus on issues that people care about — economic issues, inflation, cost of health care, research and America’s role in the world,” he said.

Negotiation and humor

Glickman, who held his seat in the U.S. House from 1977 to 1995, when ousted by GOP nominee Todd Tiahrt, said debate about fixing what ailed Washington, D.C., shouldn’t be an exclusively partisan conversation. He said there were “loads of good Republicans who don’t like what’s happening either.”

He said the government shutdown should be resolved through negotiation. But the messages Americans see each night on television have been dominated by partisan attacks. Trump should be a key player in working out a deal, he said.

“That’s what the American political system is all about,” Glickman said. “It’s really difficult with a president who doesn’t want to get his hands dirty when getting in there to solve the problem.”

Glickman, who also worked as chief executive officer of the Motion Picture Association of America, said Democrats could better connect with voters by deploying a sense of humor. The idea isn’t to be stand-up comedians, he said, but to offer voters a slice of self-deprecating humor that illustrates personal life lessons.

He pointed to Presidents Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt as role models in this regard, and criticized the current array of national politicians as humorless.

“I have found that almost every successful person — every leader that is successful in politics or whatever field — has a decent sense of humor,” Glickman said. “They could laugh at themselves. I have never seen (Trump) laugh at himself. Only at other people.”

He said recent No Kings rallies across the United States successfully brought unity among people frustrated by Trump. His praise elicited a round of applause from more than 100 people at the luncheon on the Wichita State University campus.

“Are you going to follow up? If you don’t, they’re a total waste of time,” he said.