The KaWAAAAHnsas senate race

So a few weeks back I did a blog where I apologized to Sarah Palin, because it turns out you CAN in fact quit to win.  Now in that blog I covered two stories, one of which involved the state of Kansas.

Ok so to recap for those who didnt read the earlier blog: The incumbent Republican Senator, Pat Roberts, isnt doing so well. Most polls taken at the time of my earlier blog only had him getting about 36% of the vote.

The thing was, that actually meant he win, and get to keep his seat because Kansas was having a 3 way senate race, with the Democrat and the Independent basically evenly splitting the remaining 64% of the vote (so 32% each for those not good at math).

Then the Democrat dropped out of the race, and as predicted most of his supporters went over to the Independents campaign. Which now means Pat Roberts is getting his ass kicked.

Which normally wouldnt be that big a deal, well except in Kansas.

But the thing is, at the start of this election cycle Republicans needed 6 seats to take control of the United States Senate, and (since its assumed they will hold the House as well) Congress as a whole.

And 6 seats is actually quite doable assuming polling holds out.

But that number assumed that Pat Roberts, running in arguably the most republican state in the country was in a safe race for his reelection, which no longer appears to be the case.

And polling suggests that 7th seat republicans would need to win to replace the seat they lose if Roberts loses, is well much much much less unlikely to materialize.

So yea, basically the senate race is Kansas, specifically the Democrat dropping out of that race, could have just cost the GOP the senate for the 3rd election cycle in a row.

So the fact that Roberts is losing is a BIG problem.

Now one caveat, Pat Roberts now only opponent Greg Orman is an Independent, NOT a Democrat. So if elected he COULD hypothetically caucus with the Republican Party and give them control of the senate.

Consider that, if Republicans pick up the 6 seats they are expected to and dont unexpectedly lose any others, the current balance in the Senate, not counting Orman would be 50 Republicans, and 49 Democrats.

Now because the Vice President votes in cases of a tie, and the Vice President is a Democrat the Democrats only need 50 seats to control the Senate, the Republicans need 51 (so the VP cant vote).

So a 51/49 split in this case is a tie, with control going to which ever party Orman chooses to join.

Now of course the problem for the Republicans is, although Orman agrees with them on some issues (immigration) he disagrees on others the Republicans tend to consider more important (Abortion).

Also Orman will basically owe his victory to the Democrats in Kansas, and when it comes down to who in the senate can give him better favors, its usually hard to beat the Presidents party in a situation like this.

So basically Republicans are assuming its much more likely Orman joins the Democrats, and gives them control of the senate.

Which is why the Republican Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, sued to keep the Democratic Challenger on the ballot, claiming he hadnt correctly withdrawn,  Even if not campaigning Kobach and other Kansas Republicans believed just having a name on the ballot might get enough people to vote for the Democrat (presumably believing he was still in the race) to give Roberts a chance.

And in all fairness to Kobach, political motives aside, legally he actually appeared to be correct, the laws of Kansas give specific reasons to drop out and the Democrat hadnt given one of those reasons.

Yet, yesterday, the Supreme Court of the State of Kansas ruled unanimously AGAINST Kris Kobach,
They claimed basically that the law needed only a broad explanation to drop out, and that the Democrat had git under that broad interpretation, as had a few other other candidates Kobach himself had allowed to drop off the ballot during his tenure without challenge.

Now this was actually a very fast case, the suit only got to the Court about a week ago, and they already ruled. Which is an insanely short time for deliberations.

But it turns out the speed was not the courts decision, it was Kobach,

See in court Kobach claimed that in order to insure ballots had time to reach members of the United States military they had to be printed TODAY (9/19/2014). So in order to do his job and get the ballots out, he had to know before then WHO was actually on the ballot.

So given that he lost, and he needs to be printing ballots as we speak, this story is over right?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA o ye of little faith, of course its not over.      

As I explained a few months back, the official republican election strategy this time around is "Fuck the Troops".

You see Kobach is now Demanding the Democrats place a NEW candidate on the ballot, and gave them until September 26th to do so.

Which is a week LATER then the time Kobach said he would need to make sure all Kansans in the Military actually got their ballots on time to vote.

So yea, as I see it, Kobach is now left with only 3 explanations:
1) Kobach believed that less time to deliberate in court would increase his chances of winning, and therefore lied to the court, and attempted to abuse the powers of his office. Which, I would assume is illegal
2) The troops are going to get different ballots with different candidates on them then everyone else.....which basically means they dont get to vote in the same election as everyone else. But hey fuck fair elections.
3) Fuck the troops, who gives a shit if they get to vote on time or at all. I mean hell they should have stayed home if they expected their right to vote to be respected.

Actually, come to think of it, 2 and 3, are basically two different methods of the same idea......

Oh and actually, turns out lying in Court, or screwing over the troops isnt the only problem here.

--------------------------------------------------------UPDATE-----------------------------------------

It appears option 2 is our winner. Earlier tonight Kobach announced he is attaching disclaimers to the overseas ballots informer voter this ballot may not count if the democrats name a new candidate, and the person in question must vote again. 

So much for 1 person 1 vote......not to mention honest, free and fair elections.

UPDATE 2
It seems the text of the disclaimer includes a line "To ensure that your vote is counted your ballot must be received by November 4th 2014, UNLESS A LATER DEADLINE IS COMMUNICATED IN OUR SUBSEQUENT CORRESPONDENCE TO YOU" (Caps mine)

So yea, the election will be nov 4th, unless its not, which we arnt going to tell you until later.....

Other parts: "You may vote using the ballot accompanying this letter as soon as you receive it, or you may wait to vote until you've received further notification from us,"

Again, no rush folks who knows when the fuck this election will be.....

 "If a replacement ballot is sent to you, and you have already returned the ballot that accompanies this letter, only your replacement ballot will be counted."

Even if you dont send the replacement ballot back......because hey YOUR SUPPOSED TO VOTE FOR THE DEMOCRAT SO THE REPUBLICAN WINS.....otherwise we dont count your vote (presumably for the independent) so the Republican wins.

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The other problem is that........Kris Kobach doesnt actually have the power to force the Democratic party to do a damn thing.

Consider; How many times have you heard of a 3rd party candidate dropping out, then never actually being replace? All the freaking time.

Also have you ever voted Libertarian or Green or any other 3rd party for president? Did you also vote for that same parties candidate for State or National House and Senate? Probably not, because those candidates didnt exist.

Or how about an unopposed election? Hell I dont think my hometown has had a competitive election for Mayor in my lifetime.

Cause parties are free to run who they want for what ever position they want.....or dont want.

No one can compel them to run anyone for anything.

So this is basically Kris Kobach crying like a baby, with a nice side of fuck you to the troops.

Now what Kris Kobach DOES have the power to do is strip a party of its "major party" status if they fail to meet state standards for such.

Of course theirs a problem here too, namely the requirements in Kansas are about the GOVERNORS race, and say nothing about the Senate at all. And since polls suggest the Republican Governor may actually lose, the chances are 100% the Democrats will clear the 5% of the vote threshold needed to remain a major party in Kansas.

So yea basically this is all just a bunch of WAAAAH WAAAAH WAAAAH from Kobach, but it turns out even that is good news for Democrats. You see just like Senator Roberts and the Governor, Kobach himself is facing a tight race to keep his job. So the more whining he does about this, the more likely he is to annoy voters and lose his job.

At which point he will have plenty of time to sit at home and get the poopy out of his diaper.