There was a moment sometime after the close of the 2014 election when independent candidate Greg Or-man, having just conceded a high-profile, tightly fought U.S. Senate race to longtime Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, fell into conversation with another of Kansas political veterans, Bob Dole.
Orman recalled the exchange. You know, Dole told the then 45-year-old Independent, if youd just said youd be a Republican, youd be in the Senate right now. Orman knew as much; hed had friends, colleagues, strangers tell him the same: A third-party candidate cant win in Kansas. Declare yourself a Republican skate to victory. But I said to Sen. Dole what I said to [the others]: [If I were elected as a Republican,] would I be getting anything done? Dole thought about it for a second. No, the former senator said, you wouldnt, and Im really sad about that.
You know, said Orman in a conversation with the Register on Friday. There was a time when our politics worked.
FOR ORMAN, a Kansas City-area businessman who announced his candidacy for governor in January, the path back to a functional politics begins with breaking the current two-party stranglehold, which he says restricts an elected officials ability to seek the sort of flexible, common-sense, non-party-line solutions that the state requires. And the time for such a change, says Orman, is now.
I think Kansas voters are frustrated with a system of government that they feel is daily letting them down, said the candidate, pointing to a recent Gallup poll showing that 49 percent of Republicans and 52 percent of Democrats say a third party is needed. Think about that for a second: 50 percent of the people who have chosen to affiliate with a major party so dislike their own party, they wish they had another choice.
Whether Orman will be that other choice depends on his convincing Kansas voters to overcome their partisan prejudices and electoral habits and muster the nerve to spring for a third-party candidate. Kansas has yet to elect an Independent in its nearly 160 years of statehood.
Ormans candidacy will also have to absorb the slings and arrows of certain major-party leaders, particularly on the Democratic side, who fear that with Ormans support for Medicaid expansion, moderate gun control measures, and his pathway-to-citizenship views for illegal aliens, he will draw valuable votes away from whomever the Democratic candidate turns out to be and, in so doing, will guarantee a victory for the Republicans in the fall. But, to some, Ormans views are closer to those of a moderate Republican: he is ardently pro-business, hes wary of overregulation, he was against the Affordable Care Act, he worked for President George H.W. Bushs campaign in 1988, and he has selected as his running mate Republican (now Independent) state senator and Garden City native John Doll. For these and other reasons, Orman is confident that he can earn votes from both Republicans and Democrats, not to mention the 31 percent of Kansas voters who remain unaffiliated with either major party.
Look, said Orman in a separate interview in February, theres nowhere in the Kansas Constitution, theres nowhere in the United States Constitution, that says only two parties are entitled to governor. I dont think you can spoil a system thats already rotten.
As for those majority party bosses who hope Orman will exit the race before the November election, Orman is clear: Im not going anywhere.
KANSAS: DISTRIBUTION CAPITAL OF AMERICA
Orman, who graduated from Princeton with a degree in economics in 1991, sees in Kansas the locus of a great potential. He believes that by taking advantage of Kansas geographic centrality, the Sunflower State could soon be the intermodal manufacturing and distribution capital of America.
But you cant just wave a wand, says Orman, who recalled a recent conversation he had with an executive at one of the large Class I railroads. The railroad had recently built an intermodal facility in Texas. Why Texas, asked Orman, why not Kansas? He told me it would have taken twice as long to build it in Kansas, said Or-man, because of regulatory requirements.
In an effort to relax those burdens, Orman has advocated entering into local regulatory compacts, which would provide targeted economic development dollars, highway dollars, etc., in exchange for accelerated permitting timelines that Orman believes would jump-start private sector investment. Lets say to local governments: we understand you have an obligation to protect public safety, we understand you have an obligation to protect your community, but, by the same token, there are other places that are able to get these processes done much more quickly. The goal here is to address what is otherwise a bottleneck to economic development.
TECH ED NOW, NOT LATER
Of course new jobs are of little use if Kansas lacks a robust, qualified workforce.
