Pat Roberts and Greg Orman to meet in high-stakes TV debate in Wichita

Sen. Pat Roberts and challenger Greg Orman will square off in debate Wednesday evening in front of what is likely to be their largest audience of the campaign season.

Roberts, the Republican and longtime incumbent, will face Orman, an independent and political newcomer, on KSN-TV Wichita and its statewide network of NBC-affiliated stations. The debate is co-sponsored by The Wichita Eagle, the Topeka Capital-Journal and KSN-T in Topeka. It will be live-streamed at Kansas.com.

The debate is scheduled to run a full hour, commercial-free in prime time, starting at 7 p.m.

The only other mass-market debate between the two was a State Fair affair last month produced for WIBW Radio in Topeka.

It’s nail-biting time for the campaigns, neither of which has a lock on a Senate seat that is somewhat unexpectedly up for grabs in the Nov. 4 election three weeks from now.

Orman has led most of the polls in the race, but the Roberts campaign has been closing the gap after pummeling the political newcomer in countless campaign ads as less of an independent than a proxy for Democrats.

The Democrat who originally entered the race, Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor, got his name removed from the ballot after a court fight with Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a former Republican state party chairman.

Libertarian Randall Batson is polling about 5 percent in the race and was not invited to participate in the debate.

Roberts said that in the debate, he plans to continue with themes he has developed on the campaign trail, saying Orman is out of step with conservative Kansas on issues including health care, abortion, guns and campaign finance.

Roberts characterized Orman as “just another Democrat who won’t shoot straight or come clean with Kansas. He ran against me in 2008, as a Democrat. He voted for Barack Obama and he has given thousands, literally thousands, of dollars to the Kansas Democrat(ic) Party, to (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid, to Hillary Clinton and yes, Barack Obama.”

Orman, who has also donated to Republicans, said he’s looking forward to the debate.

“I think it’s going to present (voters) with a contrast of a 47-year Washington politician and someone who really wants to go there and not serve either party, but serve as a problem solver,” he said. “I think Kansans that we talk to throughout the state realize that Washington’s broken. They realize we’re sending the worst of both parties there.”

Orman said he’s a “fiscally responsible businessman” who’s used to solving problems.

“Ultimately, I think when voters have the opportunity to review our positions on the issues, they come away understanding that,” Orman said.

Both candidates will answer questions from a panel consisting of Eagle Topeka reporter Bryan Lowry, Capital-Journal reporter Tim Carpenter, KSN reporter Craig Andres and Washburn University political science professor Robert Beatty, representing KSNT, KSN’s Topeka affiliate station.

KSN news anchor Darren Dedo will moderate.

This story was originally published October 14, 2014 at 6:52 PM with the headline "Pat Roberts and Greg Orman to meet in high-stakes TV debate in Wichita."