Common sense or nonsense?

In 2012, a group of former Republican legislators announced they had formed Traditional Republicans for Common Sense. According to the group’s website, “Radical elements and extremist politicians may have taken over our process, but it’s not too late to take it back from them.”

Founding members of Traditional Republicans for Common Sense include former U.S. Sen. Sheila Frahm, former U.S. Rep. Jan Meyers, former State Sen. Dick Bond, and others who have not stood for election since the last century. It might be unfair to call these politicians “has-beens,” but there is an “All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up” feel to the group.

At least one member of Traditional Republicans for Common Sense, former State Sen. Jean Schodorf, isn’t even a Republican. She switched to the Democratic Party shortly after garnering just 41% of the vote in the 2012 Republican primary. “It seems that the Democrats are creating jobs and solving the problems of the debt and keeping our nation solvent,” Schodorf told The Huffington Post, a liberal website, after her switch. Given that the national unemployment rate is still near 7% (it’s under 5% in Kansas) and the national debt has grown by nearly $7 trillion with a Democrat in the White House, some may take issue with Schodorf’s claim that she is for “common sense.”

Former State Sen. Wint Winter, Jr. of Lawrence is also a member of Traditional Republicans for Common Sense. Winter, last elected to office in 1990, has opposed conservative Republicans for many years. For example, in November 1998 Winter and other “moderate” Republicans backed Craig Templeton over Jim Mullins, a conservative, in the election for chairman of the Douglas County Republican Party. U.S. Rep. Vince Snowbarger had just lost to Democrat Dennis Moore, leading one “moderate” to accuse Mullins of “sitting on his hands” prior to the election. Interestingly, just a few months before the chairmanship election, Templeton was the president of the short-lived Douglas County chapter of the Mainstream Coalition, a liberal organization founded by Rev. Robert Meneilly in Johnson County in 1994. The coalition’s political action committee, MAIN*PAC, actually mailed 67,000 postcards in opposition to Snowbarger’s reelection in 1998.   

Is it possible that Winter was unaware of the Mainstream Coalition’s opposition to Snowbarger? Not likely. Winter’s brother, Dan, was on the Mainstream Coalition’s board of directors at the time. MAIN*PAC did its banking with Johnson County Bank, where Dan was the CEO and president.

With the Democrat Dennis Moore replacing the Republican Vince Snowbarger, did the residents of the Kansas 3rd District yet again have a moderate representing them in Washington, D.C.? Not quite. After Moore’s first year in Congress, Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), “America's oldest independent liberal lobbying organization,” named Moore a “Liberal Hero” for voting 100% with ADA on their selected issues. Only 36 of 435 House members received this “honor” in 1999. Moore was a member of the ostensibly conservative Blue Dog Democrats, but he voted as if he were a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Several Traditional Republicans for Common Sense members, including Dick Bond, Tim Emert, Audrey Langworthy, Jim Lowther, Jan Meyers, and Gary Sherrer, were also on the board of directors of  Kansas Traditional Republican Majority’s (KTRM) political action committee. Four days before the 2008 Republican primary election, KTRM sent out a press release with the headline “Kline and Ryun Unmasked: Linked to Ku Klux Klan.” Phill Kline was a candidate for Johnson County district attorney, while Ryun was running to retake the U.S. House seat that he lost in 2006.

How exactly did KTRM link Kline and Ryun to the KKK? In 1996, Tony Perkins, a former Marine and police officer who also worked with the U.S. State Department's Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program, was the manager the of Republican Woody Jenkins’ U.S. Senate campaign in Louisiana. Jenkins’ campaign hired Impact Media to make pre-recorded phone calls for the campaign. In 1999, a federal investigation found that David Duke, who left the KKK in 1980, had a financial interest in Impact Media, which he did not disclose to the IRS. Perkins, who was unaware of Duke’s connection to Impact Media until three years after the Jenkins campaign, became president of the Family Research Council in 2003. Family Research Council Action (FRCA) endorsed Ryun in 2008, while Kline appeared at FRCA’s Blogs for Life Conference that same year. How many degrees of separation is that?

What KTRM failed to disclose is that Andy Wollen, the chair of KTRM’s political action committee, has links to a domestic terrorist group and cop killers. Wollen studied at the Teachers College at Columbia University. This is the institution where former community organizers Bill Ayers and Kathy Boudin earned their doctorate degrees. However, before attending the Teachers College, Ayers and Boudin belonged to the Weather Underground, which declared war on the U.S. government and bombed numerous government buildings. Boudin later served 22 years in prison for her role in a 1981 armored car robbery in which a Brinks guard and two police officers were murdered.

Admittedly, it’s ridiculous to link Wollen to the Weather Underground. However, it is no more ridiculous than linking Kline and Ryun to the KKK. KTRM used this despicable tactic against fellow Republicans, yet it is very unlikely that they or Traditional Republicans for Common Sense would ever say anything as vile concerning a Democrat. In fact, the later group appears to be moving in the direction of supporting an extremely liberal Democrat, Paul Davis of Lawrence,  for governor. For a group that boasts of having “over 700 years of collective service to Kansas,” isn’t it odd that Traditional Republicans for Common Sense seems unwilling and/or unable to enlist one of its own members to challenge Governor Sam Brownback in the Republican primary election in August?