Kansas' Kobach: "You can't withdraw because you didn't say 'SIMON SAYS'" Seriously?!

[TrollBuster9090]

Yesterday, Democrats pulled off a fantastic coup which would almost certainly cost Republicans the State of Kansas in the Senate race, and possibly allow Democrats to maintain control of the Senate. They got Kansas Democratic Senate candidate Chad Taylor to withdraw from the three way race, leaving the independent candidate who had previously been splitting the vote with a 15 point advantage over Roberts.

Today, Kansas Republican Secretary of State said, in his best Alex Trebec voice: "I'm sorry, you didn't phrase that in the form of the question. So, you're not allowed to withdraw from the race."

The actual wording of the statute in question is as follows:

"Candidate Withdrawals

A candidate who has filed for any office may withdraw before the candidate filing
deadline by submitting a notarized written statement of withdrawal. [KSA 25-306a] After
the filing deadline and after the primary, a candidate for national, state, county or
township office who does not wish to be a candidate must submit a notarized written
statement declaring him/herself to be “incapable of fulfilling the duties of office” if
elected. [KSA 25-306b(b)] Candidate withdrawals create vacancies in candidacies, which in
the case of party candidacies are filled by party district convention. [KSA 25-3904, 25-3904a]
There is no provision in law for replacing independent candidates if they withdraw.
Likewise, there is no provision in law for replacing candidates in nonpartisan races."

[Dustlawyer]

1. Why can't he send another letter with the magic words? Did he wait until right before the deadline?

[Jim Lane]

2. Yes, he did. One of two grievous errors, the other being not complying with a fairly clear statute.

Presumably he's perfectly capable of fulfilling the duties of office if elected. He's just not capable of getting elected. My guess is that he felt bad about lying and especially about lying in a self-derogatory way, so he tried to get off the ballot with a watered-down version of the required letter. His ambivalence probably had something to do with his waiting until the last minute.

IIRC, a dodge that's available in New York in such situations is for the candidate to move out of state. Because he's no longer a resident, he's no longer eligible, and can be removed from the ballot. I wonder whether Kansas has a provision like that. Of course, the erstwhile Democratic candidate would understandably be reluctant to uproot his life and surrender his current job as a DA. Maybe Obama could find him an ambassadorship somewhere.

[TrollBuster9090]

3. I don't think his ambivalence had anything to do with his waiting until the last minute. I think

that was intentionally designed to give the GOP as little time to react, and form a counter strategy as possible. As far as that was concerned, it was an overwhelming success. Prior to the drop out the GOP had been putting very little time and energy into the Kansas campaign, given that Roberts was a shoe in. After the withdrawal, they panicked, and sent a bunch of high powered national campaign managers to Kansas. They know that, even with Taylor on the ballot as a "zombie candidate," he might carner 5% of the votes at most. Not nearly enough to put Roberts over the top.

Furthermore, it gives Greg Orman lots of ammunition to throw at the GOP about their obvious cheap little trick to keep Chad Taylor on the ballot, specifically to FOOL people. In fact, yesterday I was pretty pissed about this, but today I'm doing cartwheels over it. This is exactly the kind of cheap, dirty trick that Orman can throw at the GOP, and claim that, while he believes that both of the Washington based parties are petty, it's only the petty GOP candidate that's still in the race. I don't think it was intentional, but I think Taylor's error, and the GOP's response to it has handed Orman some really nice attack rhetoric.

About Taylor's not using the correct wording. I don't think it had anything to do with him not wanting to lie, or admit that he can't fulfill the duties of the office. There are reasons other than 'incompetence' for not being able to fulfill the duties of an office.

And, actually, your suggestion was a great one, which I was thinking about myself. He just sells his house (to a friend who'll sell it back again after the election's over), temporarily moves out of State, and then claims he's no longer even eligible.

That would definitely work, although, for the reasons I stated above, I don't think it's necessary anymore. There's no longer any reason to try to get around the GOP's little trick. The very fact that they pulled it in the first place gives their opponents a boost.

[Jim Lane]

4. I hope you're right but I'm dubious.

The upside, as you point out, is the voters turned off by what can be depicted as petty partisanship. The downside is the number of low-information Democratic voters who don't keep up with all these machinations; they see a Democrat on the ballot and vote for him because they're loyal Democrats.

My uninformed guess is that the downside (for us) outweighs the upside and that the Republicans will reap a net benefit.