Uncomfortable Campaigning

Hiding shouldn't be an option when you're asking for the right to lead

Let’s step away from politics-as-usual, and talk a little about being uncomfortable and the reality of elections. 

Last night, the Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce and the NAACP hosted a candidate debate. It’s the only time this election season that voters in Reno County will be able to see and hear from all the candidates in one place. 

You can see the stage was mostly empty, because not a single Republican candidate who won their primary election - not at the state level or the county level - showed up.

Every Reno County Republican asking for your vote on Nov. 8 signed onto a letter expressing their anger that the debate would include two Republican candidates who lost the primary, yet had the audacity to run active write-in campaigns.

Under Kansas law, a write-in candidate is considered a bona-fide candidate. And as voters, we have the right to hear from them and decide if they deserve our vote. 

By my incomplete count, there have been upwards of 20 Kansas Republican candidates who have skipped out on public debates and forums. Google “republicans skipping forums” and you’ll get a page of results showing the same thing is happening all over, including in Republican-controlled states. Most even skipped the storied Iowa State Fair.

Campaigning is difficult and uncomfortable. It requires a person to stand in front of a mixed crowd of people, in one’s home community, to share experiences, thoughts, ideas, and positions. When it’s all over each candidate will have to process the results. A loss, in some ways, can feel like a rejection of you, individually, as a person. And that is not easy. 

In many parts of Kansas, voters are overwhelmingly Republican. That’s certainly the case in much of Reno County. If a person ran a campaign solely on numbers, the sure bet is on running as a Republican. And that’s why in some areas of the state you won’t see a local Democrat on the ballot. There are increasingly fewer people on the Democratic side of the aisle willing to suffer the wrath of the public in the longshot hope that they might do something good for their community, and their state. 

Yet in the past decade or so, just being a Republican in a Republican area isn’t quite enough, either. The party has carved itself into factions, and there are litmus tests to determine who is Republican enough to emerge through a primary. The same obnoxious mail pieces that paint Democrats as cozy with all the Democrats-you-love-to-hate have also been lobbed at Republicans who approach governance with pragmatism or moderation. 

Some of the 2020 election season mail. This also includes a mailer from one extremism against another extremist - Kobach vs Marshall.

And what has that gotten us? 

It’s largely meant that moderate Republicans have been routed in Kansas. They might stand a chance if they could appeal to Republicans of all tastes, Democrats, and unaffiliated voters. But they often can’t get past a primary. Even here in Reno County some incredibly popular and effective lawmakers have been given the boot by their own party. Now it’s trickling down to our school boards, county commissions, and city councils. 

It’s discouraged Democrats from taking on the effort and risk of running for public office. And for those who do, they must work to secure votes from all political affiliations to have any hope of winning. 

It’s seemingly given us a group of people who say they want to lead us, who want to represent us, and to make decisions on our behalf, yet who largely refuse to talk with people who don’t share their view of the world. They are holding their own events - sometimes not even bothering to invite Republicans they don’t support. They have made it clear they need not bother engaging moderate Republicans or Democrats. It seems they see it their right to run YOUR government with a handful of like-minded people. (When it’s all said and done around here, most Republicans are elected by 11 or so percent of all possible voters).

And it’s given us a group of “leaders” who surround themselves with others who affirm without question just how right they are. 

I get it. There are days when this job is incredibly uncomfortable. In Kansas, most Democrats don’t have the luxury of talking only to their supporters. The math doesn’t work - and they have to reach out to people with different thoughts and ideas about the world. My life and my experiences inform my ideas and positions - but they are improved through a better understanding of my community by talking with people whose experiences are different than mine.

I can’t surround myself in likeness, and I shouldn’t. Just a few days ago, I returned a call from a constituent to answer her question - even though I saw months before that she had given money to my opponent. I could’ve been mad. I could’ve ignored her. I could’ve told her to go kick rocks. But she’s one of MY constituents, and I am here to help her, too. Even if I won’t ever get her vote. 

And that’s just as it should be.

An idea isn’t good just because a person has one. Ideas require questioning, consideration, conversation, and testing from a broader group of people. This is how we find the blind spots, the weakness, and the ways to make an idea better. None of that happens when the idea is surrounded by people who already think it’s a good idea. 

I hope when you vote in this election, you’ll consider whether the people who want your support have shown courage enough to test their ideas publicly, in front of people who don’t by default agree with them. 

And I hope you’ll support those candidates who have been courageous enough to be uncomfortable. 

Thanks for subscribing to That Guy in Hutch . This post is public, so feel free to share it. In some cases this publication is paid for by Probst for Kansas, Erin Swearer, treasurer.