Scott Morgan and Wint Winter go "All In"

Three days after Scott Morgan appeared at a rally organized by the Democrat-dominated Mainstream Coalition and a day after Winter Winter, Jr. formally endorsed liberal Democrat Paul Davis for Kansas governor, the "moderate" duo appeared on MSNBC's "All In with Chris Hayes" on July 16. (video here, transcript here)

If I had to describe their appearance in one word, that word would be "odd." If fact, Morgan offered this response after Hayes asked him why he was challenging Kris Kobach in the GOP primary race for secretary of state:

Well, it`s kind of an odd decision, but frankly it was realization that at some point
you have to stand up and say, this isn`t as -- we`re better than this. 

And he was such an extreme example of what had gone wrong in Kansas,
and I was oddly qualified for the secretary of state, and so I decided, you
tell your kids, you have to stand up to the bully, and I said, OK, I need
to stand up and say, this doesn`t represent us.

Of course, two nominal Republicans appearing on MSNBC to join in on that network's bashing of the GOP is not a common occurrence. But there was Morgan and Winter sandwiched in between segments featuring Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's secretary of labor and chairman of the left-wing Common Cause, and a certain Zephyr Teachout, who is challenging Andrew Cuomo in the Democrat primary for governor of New York because she doesn't believe he is liberal enough. As you can see, it was an odd evening.

According to Morgan, Kobach uses his position as secretary of state "as a platform both in the state and nationally to go against immigrants...." As someone married to an immigrant who came to this country legally, I have to take exception to that comment. My wife and I were at an event with Kobach last week. He could not have more cordial towards my wife. Morgan is being very dishonest when he conflates legal immigrants with illegal immigrants. Kobach's appearance with Gov. Cuomo's brother, Chris, on CNN on July 17, demonstrates that Kobach also is not a "bully" when it comes to illegal immigrants. He showed a great deal of compassion and sympathy towards the thousands of Central American children who have recently crossed our border. Cuomo and Kobach actually had a thoughtful and reasonable discussion about that tragedy of Obama's own making.

Kobach "just has a deep desire to be on national television," Morgan continued, apparently unaware of the fact that he was on national television, albeit a network with few viewers.

Morgan then went on to claim, without evidence, that Kobach "wants to be president." He followed that comment with this odd statement: "And so that doesn`t rub well with a lot of Kansans, whether
they`re moderate or conservative." No, because it rubbed us Kansans the wrong way when fellow Kansans Landon, Eisenhower, and Dole ran for president. 

Wint Winter was up next. Winter was representing the 104 (make that 103) "moderate" Republicans who have endorsed Democrat Paul Davis in his campaign to unseat Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican. 

"What prompted you to take this somewhat dramatic step," Hayes asked Winter. Winter gave three reasons, all of which appear to be false. Here they are:

"Number one, he`s enacted, in his own words, an experimental extreme tax plan."

I can find no record of Brownback saying, in his own words, that his tax plan is "extreme." I have emailed Winter to see if he can provide a source for that claim and will include an update if he responds.

"[S]econdly, that`s resulted in cuts to our schools. Education is a victim of that experiment."

The following chart shows that actual per-pupil spending on education and the inflation-adjusted funding beginning in 1998 have both increased:

According to the Kansas Policy Institute, "Inflation-adjusted funding appears to have declined by 3.7% since 2008 (green line) but that is also misleading. Total funding as reported by the Kansas Department of Education is actually district-reported total expenditures. KSDE calculates local expenditures by subtracting the amounts they funnel to school districts from state and federal sources from district-reported total expenditures. However, local expenditures are not the same as local funding because districts often do not spend all of the state and local tax dollars they receive. The portion not spent is used to increase their cash reserves (and not reported as funding)."

Winter's third reason was that Brownback's tax plan resulted in "a very substantial deficit spending."

However, as Raney Gilliland, Kansas Legislative Research Department director, told Kansas Watchdog, “There really aren’t deficits, I think you’re probably aware of that, because constitutionally we can’t go below zero.”

Winter later went on to say, "we need a governor in the state legislature that can balance the budget."

Winter hasn't be in the state legislature for more than two decades, so perhaps he has forgotten that the governor does not serve in the state legislature. The governor is in the executive branch.

When Hayes returned to Morgan, Morgan said, "But the point here wasn't to succeed necessarily -- I'd love to win and I think it's more possible than I would have thought." So Morgan is not in the race necessarily to succeed. I find that to be an interesting statement for two reasons. First, note that he said this after claiming that Kobach "doesn't want to be secretary of state." It sounds a bit as if Morgan was projecting. After all, at the beginning of the interview he said, "It's not the most exciting office; it's largely clerical." Second, doesn't that statement add more credence to the belief that Morgan is merely running against Kobach in the primary in an attempt to weaken the secretary of state before he faces his Democratic opponent in November?

Odd indeed.