By SJ Otto
Voting has already started for the April 11 special election to see who will win the seat vacated by Republican Mike Pompeo, the war monger who President Donald Trump chose to run the CIA.
On the Republican side we have Ron Estes, Kansas State Treasurer. Estes is a lack-luster candidate, who has been a Republican flunky of our unpopular governor Sam Brownback for much of the last 20 years. He doesn’t stand out much and is a pretty flimsy candidate. He is not aggressive and he has no real leadership capabilities. But he has one thing going for him that his opponent, James Thompson, doesn’t have. He’s a Republican and he has a lot of Republican money to spend on ads. And that is all he has really done for his campaign. According to the Daily Kos:
“Ron Estes, the Republican opponent and state treasurer has taken the race for granted, assuming he will walk into office with very little contest. Estes is so confident that he’s skipped public forums, refused debates, and ran a campaign that says: “I win by default.”
Thompson, on the other hand, is trying an outreach campaign, hoping to build community support behind his goals, and his campaign believes that those things will pay off in the end.”
Estes knows he will get a lot of votes just because he is a Republican. A lot of Kansas voters refuse to ever vote Democrat. If Estes was a convicted child molester and a convicted heroin dealer, he could still win the election just because he is a Republican.
However Thompson is running a hard campaign and many people believe he can actually win.
"Kansas Democrats have an opportunity here to win for the first time in 23 years now and it feels like from the campaign’s perspective that a lot of the current establishment of the KDP is sitting on the sidelines,"(campaign manager Colin) Curtis told The Wichita Eagle.
Estes is still ahead in the polls.But he is being arrogant and assumes he will just walk right in, since he is the Republican. Thompson is running a serious campaign. At present the polls show him behind by 56 percent to 32.
Again Daily Kos said:
“A veteran, Thompson made inroads in the Democratic convention by putting himself out there as the progressive candidate in the race, touting his Bernie Sanders bonafides. That paid off today, with the endorsement of Our Revolution, who has chosen to back Thompson in his quest to take the seat.”
This will be a tough race to win, but we need to do all we can. Thompson is just now starting to get his commercials out there and that will help. Let’s wipe that smirk off of Estes’ face. Let’s elect Thompson.
“Look at me—I’m a Republican. I gotta win. What ‘er ya gonna do? Vote Democrat?!”Pix by (AP): U.S. Elections - Associated Press.