Kansas City Star
Steve Kraske
Cakewalk?
Or a race so close that it turns your knuckles white, then red, then purple and blue?
Those two forecasts are in play in the Jerry Moran-Todd Tiahrt war for the U.S. Senate that’s rapidly turning off Republicans all over Kansas.
One voter, Linda Nixon of Lake Quivira, wrote me Friday to complain that the two were beating each other up so much “that no one would want to vote for either one of them” next month.
Calling them “fairly well aligned” on the issues, Nixon said, “They can’t use substantive differences to differentiate one from the other so they have chosen to demonize each other.”
In Tiahrt’s view, Moran’s soft on terrorism, soft on security, soft on immigration and not a true conservative.
A “dismal voting record,” Tiahrt’s camp says.
In Moran’s view, Tiahrt is soft on immigration and flailing away with one charge after another like a 7- year-old’s first fist-fight.
“Clearly desperate and showing a particularly over-the-top level of negativity,” a Moran spokesman said.
The vicious infighting is jostling summertime sensibilities. Sure, we’ve seen our share of crazy races around here.
But this race stands out because no other primary contest has reached a level of vitriol anywhere close. Moran and Tiahrt are playing for keeps. The winner, more than likely, is senator for the rest of his career.
Given that, neither is overly concerned about the tenor of the race. Voters will quickly forget. They always do.
Check out Bob Dole circa 1974. In a desperate bid to hang onto his Senate seat the same year that Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace over Watergate, Dole portrayed his Democratic opponent, Bill Roy, as favoring “abortion on demand,” which was untrue.
Two years later, Dole was on the presidential ticket with Gerald Ford.
That said, here are five things I think about the Moran-Tiahrt cage clash:
Watch what they do, not what they say. Tiahrt’s campaign says the race is a statistical dead heat.
But Tiahrt is acting like he’s behind by a whole bunch more. He’s been the aggressor in the race and is pushing a slew of hard-hitting ads, including one featuring Gracia Burnham of Rose Hill, Kan.
She survived a kidnapping in the Philippines that resulted in the death of her husband, Martin. The spot knocks Moran for opposing a 2006 bill that sanctioned military tribunals to try suspected terrorists. The spot says he was “protecting” terrorists “with constitutional rights.”
“Mr. Moran, there’s no excuse for this,” Burnham says into the camera. “There just isn’t.”
Tiahrt’s big gamble is that the negative ads will raise enough doubt among voters that they turn away from Moran.
But has he been so negative that voters have begun tuning him out? Maybe.
Moran’s pollster, the respected Public Opinion Strategies, said exactly that in a memo last week. Pollster Glen Bolger could be right.
Tiahrt has one distinct advantage, and that’s what his campaign describes as an active grass-roots network of conservatives who will get out the vote on what could be a sultry Aug. 3 primary day.
That’s why Tiahrt is pushing endorsements from the big guns of American conservatism: Palin, Dobson, Ashcroft, Forbes.
The far-right activists remain the race’s wildest wild card.
Hailing from the big 1st District in western Kansas, Moran had a lead coming out of the gate. Those folks vote. One independent pollster, SurveyUSA, had Moran up 72-15 in that part of the state.
That’s huge, and it may be enough for Moran to win going away, particularly if the two candidates split in Topeka-Lawrence and over here.
In his TV ads, Tiahrt never introduced himself to voters in eastern Kansas. He came out of the gate firing, maybe because he was behind early on. His campaign said the approach was intentional, that voters were in no mood for fluff.
But voters want to have a feel for folks they place in high office. That never happened.
If Tiahrt wins, it’ll be a squeaker. If anyone’s walking away with this thing, it’s Moran.
