Print edition: 
During a live televised debate Monday night, four Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate in Kansas tried to explain why they were best prepared to win in November.
The winner of the Aug. 3 primary will likely face an incumbent Republican congressman, either Jerry Moran or Todd Tiahrt, who lead a field of three candidates.
State Sen. David Haley of Kansas City stressed his record of being able to work with Republicans in the Legislature to break gridlock.
Haley, an attorney, is the only one of the four to have held elected office.
"Kansans want a leader, not career politicians," said Lisa Johnston, of Overland Park, an assistant administrative dean at Baker University.
Charles Schollenberger, who lives in Prairie Village and describes himself as a professional journalist, noted that he has political experience after having worked on four successful congressional campaign.
"The Senate is not an entry-level job," he said.
Patrick Wiesner, an accountant and attorney from Lawrence, said, "This is an election where they're going to throw out the incumbents."
The four debated for nearly 30 minutes at KWCH in Wichita.
Haley, Johnston and Schollenberger were aligned in supporting the extension of unemployment benefits and saw health care as a right, not a privilege.
"Actually, economic experts agree there are benefits to allowing people to continue to draw unemployment benefits because they have an income they can spend," Johnston said.
By extending unemployment benefits, Schollenberger said, "In the long run we can save tax revenues. I don't think the unemployment situation is anything we want to monkey around with."
Wiesner took the opposing view.
"If we go ahead and go more into debt," he said, "we're derelict in our duty to solve this debt problem."
On health care, Wiesner said, "I don't find it in the Constitution that there is a right to get health care from the government or an employer."
But Johnston noted that the general welfare of the population was addressed in the preamble to the Constitution. Haley said, "It needs to be a right as it is in every other civilized country."
Each stressed priorities that reflected the experiences they bring to the campaign.
Schollenberger, who called himself a "lifelong Democratic political activist," saw unemployment as the nation's most pressing issue.
He also said the nation's economy may need a second stimulus package.
Haley, who was a Republican until shifting to the Democratic Party 18 years ago, cited easing gridlock in Congress as one of his top concerns.
"So often the representatives we've sent (to Washington) have just said no to any particular policy," he said. "We need someone who will work in a compromise fashion to insure Kansans get more from Washington. Congressmen Moran and Tiahrt are both Washington politicians gone bad."
As an educator for nearly two decades, Johnston said she would fill a void that exists in the Senate.
"There needs to be a focus on education," Johnston said, adding she would push to move away from the federal No Child Left Behind education law.
She said she would set spending priorities, collect all revenue owed to the government and "make sure corporations pay their fair share."
Wiesner said his first priority would be to get out of Iraq in 2011 as agreed between the United States and Iraq.
An Army reservist who returned in May from his second tour in Iraq, Wiesner said, "I've watched how money has been spent over there. I think Iraq is unprepared and will ask us to stay longer than the agreed deadline."
He said he would also stop mortgage companies from dumping bad debt on the federal government.
Robert Conroy, the fifth Democratic in the race and a retired railroad engineer, declined to participate in the debate.
He won the 2004 Democratic primary for the Senate, but he pulled out of the race before facing incumbent Republican Sen. Sam Brownback in the general election.
