Open Letter To Conservative Kansas Voters

The way I see it, we have some work cut out for us. Here are some things to consider concerning the future three months, affecting the future altogether:

Vickie Schmidt was elected for the Insurance Commissioner GOP candidate. She’s a known RINO and should just change her affiliation to Democrat. However she hasn’t, and is most likely posturing herself for larger Republican roles. Who’s Nathanial McLaughlin? What’s the job of Insurance Commissioner, and is it really a political job that partisanship platforms heavily affect? If not, why not vote for McLaughlin to get Schmidt out of office for awhile? I’m going to do some digging on this and welcome insight, wisdom and strategy we can utilize across the state.

[And try not to think of this negatively. Partisan politics is only effective if one party is right about everything all the time – and we know that isn’t reality. If the office doesn’t demand compromise on Constitutional and moral issues, then either party is appropriate. [For example, does the office of “Insurance Commissioner” have a lot of responsibilities that would set back the conservative platform if a democrat operated in it?] If Kansas conservatives want the Republican party to adequately represent conservative politics, we have to start weeding out the RINOs and otherwise compromised “republicans”. Look at the big picture. Vickie Schmidt does NOT represent conservative values. She should not represent conservative Republicans. If Republicans vote her out of office by voting for a Democrat, the message will be made loud and clear to future RINOs. i.e. We do not have your back. We do not vote straight party if the party isn’t accurately being represented.]

Kris Kobach is running against Laura Kelly. This should be a win, as twice as many Republicans voted in the primaries than did Democrats. [311,009 (R) vs 152,856 (D)] Republicans in Kansas simply have more voters than Democrats. Laura Kelly was endorsed by Planned Parenthood in 2008 and as a governor candidate is endorsed by Emily’s List, the largest pro-choice resource in America for the basis of abortion in politics. Of course this isn’t the only topic of concern, but it is one that needs demonstrably resounded across the public venues. Also, Kelly is campaigning on the platform to reverse the bill (SB 284) enacted to enable religious based adoption agencies to deny placement of foster children contrary to their firmly held religious convictions. [Opponents of such bills like to use terms like anti-LGBT as though this is about opposing a movement instead of upholding sincerely held religious convictions that date back literally thousands of years, versus modern social and cultural changes.] It would behoove Kansans to evaluate the issues of gravest concern in Kansas and highlight Kobach’s strategies for implementing forward progress in those. Then inform, inform, inform Kansans and then recruit, recruit, recruit voters to actually show up and vote.

Of urgent concern is the primary election of Steve Watkins for US House District 2 (replacing Lynn Jenkins). This is especially egregious in the light of known and confirmed true conservatives Tyson, Jones, Fitzgerald and Pyle, who garnered an accumulated 47,627 votes to Watkins’ 19,753 votes. Clearly a true Conservative is the desire of Kansans, of which Watkins has yet to demonstrate. In retrospect and possibly for future benefit, perhaps the Republican committee can do a better job of selecting one key conservative candidate instead of four. Clearly those votes divided the conservative vote casting it virtually inept for the primary.

To date, Watkins appears a chameleon of sorts, shifting and coloring himself for the audience he’s in front of. Rumor has it he comes from a wealthy family and has the means of throwing a lot of money at campaigning stunts. (Apparently his PAC’s sole donor of $100k was his father.) His father insists that Steve is conservative, which is encouraging if true. Red flags have been thrown, however, by conflicting reports that Steve met with the Democratic party and expressed personal liberal views. From the following sourced link:

Watkins has faced scrutiny in recent weeks after Kansas Democratic officials revealed that the candidate met with them at Shawnee Democratic Party headquarters several months before he announced his run. Watkins confirmed the meeting took place, but has denied claims that he ever considered running as a Democrat or espoused socially liberal views during the meeting.

Read more here.

A damning piece was written in the Kansas City Star with revealing allegations that Watkins did indeed meet with the Democratic Committee about running as a Democrat and supporting widely held liberal beliefs in the social arena. The article states:

Three Kansas Democrats said they met with Steve Watkins, an Army veteran running as a Republican in Kansas’ 2^nd District, at the Shawnee Democratic Party headquarters in Topeka in August 2017 when he was contemplating a run for the open seat.

“He was basically trying to feel us out and see if we’d support him for Congress,” said Ty Dragoo, the Democratic vice chair for the 2^nd District.

“When he was talking to us, it was all the right stuff,” Dragoo said. “He supports sensible gun laws. He supports labor unions… He sounded like a Kansas Democratic Party member. His social views were liberal. We talked about gay and lesbian rights and he was all for that.”

Watkins has denied these allegations, and you can read his denial in the cited article.

Independent researchers and journalists discovered Watkins has only voted in two elections in his entire life, both local and both in the last two years, and never in a Presidential election.

Reports reveal that Watkins failed to receive a Kansas for Life endorsement and is married to Planned Parenthood award winner Fong Liu, a pro-choice Ob-Gyn. According to this report, his wife also contributed to a democrat PAC, ActBlue as recently as last year. These are alarming affiliations for a conservative Republican, and may explain why the known conservative candidates received 47,627 votes to Watkins 19,753 votes. Nonetheless, we have a curious situation before us that we need to address with wisdom, vigilance and strategy. Watkins’ words maintain that he is “unequivocally pro-life”, but we have nothing in his actions to confirm this.

Either Watkins is a liar and has infiltrated the Republican party as an imposter, or there are other possibilities. We have little time to figure this out and do the appropriate work, so we should begin immediately.

Maybe Watkins is apolitical. Maybe he doesn’t exactly know what he believes and is a mixture of his parents’ ideology, his wife’s ideology and/or his life experiences. His father insists he is conservative, and Watkins himself professes an “outsider” position. If this be the case, two things need to happen immediately: prayer and conservative counsel. We must pray for Watkins to heed the wisdom of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution. We must pray wise counsel be put around him. We must surround him with wise counsel. If he is still forming his convictions it is imperative that wise and experienced conservatives be his counselors. Who are his friends? Who counsels him? Where does he get his information? How well does he know and understand the liberties and responsibilities of our Constitution? These questions must be answered now.

Watkins has professed that he would have voted for Trump if he had voted in the last elections, and he has professed he thinks Trump is the right answer for America’s current woes. If this be true, he needs people around him to help him align with the principles of change Trump is bringing in immigration policy (i.e. border security, immigration law enforcement, etc.), tax reform, business policies, foreign and domestic trade, etc. He needs to be familiar with these things, understand them, and understand Kansans’ views of these things.

Maybe Watkins was playing the democratic party to infiltrate it? (a long shot, I know) And maybe he was trying to be strategic in combatting the opposition. If so, he was ineffective and unbelievable. He needs wisdom and experience and those around him to guide him effectively. He needs to be counseled on transparency and the necessity of it if he’s going to righteously lead at our nation’s capital and rightly represent his state’s constituents.

Or maybe Watkins really is a conservative, really is pro-life, really does want to bring Constitutional change to a corrupt system. If so, again, he needs our prayers and he needs wise counsel around him. Maybe he is an upcoming new face of change for a stale system, but desperately needs wisdom and experience. It would behoove us as conservatives to be praying for him and helping him get established in true conservative and Constitutional principles.

Or maybe Watkins is a fraud and he really is liberal, and really isn’t interested in anything than making a name for himself, accruing some political allies, and furthering the mess in DC. If this is the case, we must both hold his feet to the fire, and also vote him out in two years. We must make a concerted effort to nominate ONE Conservative frontrunner for the next election and replace him immediately.

These are our options as I see it. We must move, and move quickly, before liberal forces and unwise counsel muddies the waters and changes the direction.

E-Mail Ms. Smallback: M.Smallback@cox.net