Here’s an object lesson from Kansas Senator Pat Roberts in how not to deal with a Teanderthal primary challenger:
In an interview, the three-term senator acknowledged that he did not have a home of his own in Kansas. The house on a country club golf course that he lists as his voting address belongs to two longtime supporters and donors — C. Duane and Phyllis Ross — and he says he stays with them when he is in the area. He established his voting address there the day before his challenger in the August primary, Milton Wolf, announced his candidacy last fall, arguing that Mr. Roberts was out of touch with his High Plains roots.
“I have full access to the recliner,” the senator joked. […]
If the fact that Roberts has compromised with Democrats more than a few times in his 30+ years in DC wasn’t enough to do him in, this Lugarish level of arrogance about his home state ties is almost certain doom. Unlike your average Halperin or Balz, I’m not going to cry any tears over the replacement of “reasonable Republican” Roberts with a guy who calls himself “the next Ted Cruz”. They both will vote the same, so let’s stop pretending that there’s much difference when it comes down to the nut cutting, as they say in flyover country.
aimai
Yup. People in Kansas can decide whether they want to be represented by a horrible person, or a horribbiler person. I can’t really say I care and I for damned sure can’t affect things one way or another.
Baud
Politics and ideology aside, I can see being pissed off about having a Senator who’s cut ties with the state he’s supposed to represent.
Fuzzy
Why not just move in with a lobbyist…oh wait.
Amir Khalid
How did he get away with not having a residence in the state he represents? Isn’t the vetting process supposed to verify such details?
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
How did Obama get away with being president even though he was born in Kenya? /birther
cathyx
@Amir Khalid: I’m sure he’s ‘renting’ it.
c u n d gulag
And here’s some more sad, sad, news – Sean Hannity is putting his NY home up for sale:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/09/sean-hannity-moving-new-york_n_4753887.html
LOL!
Hey Unibrow, on your way out, don’t let the door hitchya, where the FSM splitchya!!!!
Fuzzy
@Amir Khalid: Actually this is a prime example of the GOP’s “voter fraud” .
Cervantes
@Baud: Left you a question seeking clarification. Address it only if you see fit, thanks.
Baud
@Cervantes:
Thanks. Not in mood for that discussion right now. I’ll just say that I think we often fall for a false nostalgia, which is a trait we usually ascribe to conservatives.
gf120581
He’s in considerably better shape than Lugar was, since (a) his opponent is still largely unknown, unlike Mourdock who was and still is an elected statewide official and (b) he’s not percieved as being an Obama buddy like Lugar was.
Still, not a smart thing to joke about, Pat.
Mike in NC
I have a copy of “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” but I just haven’t gotten around to reading it. Then again, maybe I don’t need to.
Cermet
Hard to believe that a senator would sell his own home in his state of residence just to have a place near DC. I bet he just felt the need to cash in on the home value while living near DC. Did this nut-case think he was so special that no one would notice?
Wow, the press really does its job. No doubt a number of other senators will now be trying to get a rental unit as well; funnier still, at least one will still have no residence in their “own” state even after all this.
These guys really do think they are special and rules just don’t apply to them.
Cervantes
@Baud: OK, thanks. We’ll leave it for another day.
mai naem
I read this piece yesterday.Pat Roberts used to be considered one of the most conservative members in the Senate I don’t understand these idiots. There are simple solutions to this.If they have adult kids, they can have their kids live in “their” houses and just say they live in an extended family situation or that the kids are looking after their house. They can rent a cheap efficiency apartment in an ok neighborhood. They can buy a house with a guest house and have their kids/friends rent/live in the bigger one. He makes $200K a year and Roberts has been making it for a long time. His wife’s got to making decent money. There is no reason he shouldn’t be able to afford a modest second home. This is like Dana Rohrabacher renting that house in California. He’s in his 50s and been making $175k for decades and he can’t afford to buy a house? WTF?
Derelict
Interesting that, under the proposed Kansas voter ID laws, he can’t vote in the state that he represents.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Senator Pat Roberts has a 96% rating from the American Conservative Union. That suggests to me that there isn’t a shit ton of room to the right of him yet there’s a teahadist attempting to challenge him from the right. We may never reach peak wingnut but we may see peak loony as the wingers try to outflank each other.
Jay C
At least one of my Senators does it right: I recall seeing a piece in the NYT a while ago about Chuck Schumer, and how, when in Washington, he rooms with some Congressional buddies in what sounds more like a hippie crash pad (Schumer, as last guy in, has to sleep on a mattress on the floor) – but his family has a nice house in Park Slope, Brooklyn (Mayor De Blasio’s neighborhood as well, but the Senator doesn’t, I think., shovel his own walks). Pat Roberts seems to have gotten it backwards: crashing with friends back in his “home” state, and living nicely in DC…..
COB
It will be exciting to watch the Neanderthals pound themselves over the head with clubs on the TeeVee during the primaries. Much fun in store.
Hurling Dervish
Roberts is the weasel who led the “investigation” on 9/11 and managed to blame Clinton. And then “investigated” the intellgence that led to the war in Iraq and managed to deep-six it until after the election, and promised to release it eventually. I don’t think he ever did. Bet he’s all over Benghazi, though.
Hurling Dervish
Roberts is the weasel who led the “investigation” on 9/11 and managed to blame Clinton. And then “investigated” the intellgence that led to the war in Iraq and managed to deep-six it until after the election, and promised to release it eventually. I don’t think he ever did. Bet he’s all over Benghazi, though.
Hurling Dervish
Roberts is the weasel who led the “investigation” on 9/11 and managed to blame Clinton. And then “investigated” the intellgence that led to the war in Iraq and managed to deep-six it until after the election, and promised to release it eventually. I don’t think he ever did. Bet he’s all over Benghazi, though.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Hurling Dervish:
Over Benghazi? The Republicans will never get over Benghazi.
MattF
So, I guess one has to distinguish between voter fraud and votee fraud. One of them exists and the other does not.
Villago Delenda Est
The stupid…it BURNS!
Patrick
Amen! Since Obama took over, they have all voted in a block vote. There is virtually no difference in actual voting between a senator such as Susan Collins and a Ted Cruz. So who cares if a Pat Roberts loses. It makes literally no difference in voting patterns.
Ian
@Mike in NC:
In brief- why does a state full of people who are blue collar and utterly dependent on the government on multiple levels vote for a political party that repeatedly pokes them in the eye?
randy khan
I actually live in the same neighborhood as the Roberts family. (Technically, it’s Fairfax County, not Alexandria, but the mistake probably is because the Post Office gives us an Alexandria zip code.) They’ve been here longer than me, and I’ve been here for 21 years. As some of the articles say, his wife is a real estate agent – she sells a lot in the neighborhood – but the articles don’t seem to mention that their kids all went to school in Fairfax County.
WereBear
Because they want so desperately to pretend otherwise. Rurals are particularly prone to the myth that all the need is a good axe and a bag of salt to make their own way in the wilderness.
Jay C
@Mike in NC: @Ian:
The classic explanation is actually fairly simple: the “Kansas” effect stems from the Republicans’ single-minded fixation on pushing “social” issues – abortion, contraception, gays, guns, religious “freedom” , etc.* – as the principal determinant for political discussion and the main touchstone for representation. Economic issues (which of course, for the ones in vogue today’s GOP actively retard any middle-class progress, but never mind) are considered secondary – and typically framed in simplistic boilerplate cliches in any case. Couple this with a deliberately inculcated tribalistic Us-vs-Them mentality and a tightly-run political machine, and it should be no surprise that “Kansas” consistently seems to vote against its own interests.
* Basically ignorance/prejudice dressed up as “morality”
Bob
I’m considering the very painful, mentally, move of switching my voter registration to Republican so I can vote in the R’s primary. Vote against Roberts.
JoyfulA
This is where Ricky Santorum messed up big time, living in a VA horse country McMansion (which he couldn’t afford without a shady mortgage, but that’s another story) while claiming to live in a tiny house in a working-class neighborhood where his niece and her husband were also living. He dropped the ball by having the PA school district have to pay the bills for his many kids’ cyberschooling, and a school board member was trying to find ways to cut the budget—
Citizen Alan
When I first saw the headline, I thought it was talking about Pat Robertson, and I wondered if he had actually gotten defrocked for attacking Ken Ham for making Christianity look stupid.
Central Planning
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
5 points to Griffendor for the Airplane reference.
Splitting Image
I disagree with this. For the teabaggers, it isn’t about the voting anymore. A Republican who toes the party line 96% of the time isn’t enough unless he is also deliberately poisoning the well in other ways. Roberts showing up and dutifully voting the way he does shows an unconscionable respect for the federal government and its traditions and institutions. If they have a chance to replace him with a lunatic who wants to burn the whole thing to the ground, they have a moral obligation to do so.
burnspbesq
@randy khan:
What do you think the chances are that Roberts paid non-resident tuition if any of his kids went to UVa?
Zero?
Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Central Planning: Agreed, and the fact that the original thing that couldn’t be gotten over was “Macho Grande” makes it even sweeter.