Republicans are desperate—using deception to try and stop Bollier

 By SJ Otto

When Republicans begin to lose a race, that is when they resort to name calling, lying libel and slander. The latest examples are the lies Republicans are sending out about Barbara Bollier, the candidate for US senate in Kansas. They claim she is an extremist on abortion and that she is also against the second amendment. And since they are tied in the polls, Republicans keep making more and more outrageous accusations against Bolleir.

A recent flyer I got in the mail says:

”Barbara

Bollier:

EXTREME ON ABORTION…

Voted AGAINST a 21-week

Later term abortion ban

..AND EXTREME ON GUN CONTROL

Wrote a bill making it easier for the government to seize your guns”

I have seen other ads that claim she wants abortion up to the time of birth and she wants the tax payers to pay for it. That is a complete lie. No political leader in office wants that. Also there is no way to get the tax payers to pay for abortion and nearly no politicians would support that either. 

As for the accusation that she wants to “seize guns,” that is also ridiculous. 

One reason the Republicans are so desperate to stop Bollier is that she has outspent them and she is neck and neck with her opponent, Roger Marshall, in the polls.  The Republicans fear that she may win the election. The Republicans are working hard to keep their majority in the Senate.

According to Vox:

“A Democrat hasn’t won a US Senate seat in Kansas since 1932. And yet, for the first time in decades, the ruby-red state is seeing a truly competitive Senate race.

With an open seat after longtime Sen. Pat Roberts (R) announced his retirement, polling of Democratic state Sen. Barbara Bollier and Republican Rep. Roger Marshall shows a tight contest. This summer, political experts in the state assumed the only way Democrats could make Kansas competitive was by running against controversial Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who lost to Marshall in the August primary.

But so far, Bollier’s fundraising and polling are defying much of the conventional wisdom about Kansaspolitics. Bollier has out-fundraised Marshallby more than $5 million, the latest figures from OpenSecrets show.”

Republicans are fond of using both gun rights and anti-abortion as push button issues. There are a lot of Republicans who vote for those issues only. They ignore all the corruption and unfair support of the super wealthy over the common working man. They have tried to misquote Bollier and portray her as anti-gun. According to AP:

“Republican Roger Marshall is using out-of-context clips from Democrat Barbara Bollier’s ads in a television spot in which his campaign argues that she’s trying to hide liberal views from voters, suggesting the GOP doesn’t have the race for an open U.S. Senate seat locked down yet in normally safe Kansas.

But Bob Beatty, a Washburn University of Topeka political scientist, said his review of about 1,200 state political ads dating back more than 50 years indicates that Marshall’s move is a new tactic for Kansas.

“Of course it’s manipulative,” he said. Later, he added about viewers, “The vast majority aren’t really going to tune in to a narrator at the beginning.”

Bollier and her staff has charged Marshall with using her quotes out of context. Again from AP:

“The Marshall ad also cites a 2014 statement from Bollier to a local newspaper about gun issues to suggest she supports a ban on guns, with a clip of her saying, “I’ll work to ban them nationwide.”

Bollier spokeswoman Alexandra De Luca called that section of the ad “particularly egregious.”

The far right Kansas Republicans have just assumed that most Kansans support their ultra-rightwing policies. If Bollier wins it will be a kick in their pants and an eye opener that will tell them they are not as safe in Kansas as they have assumed over the years.