Roberts campaign turns its focus to wooing GOP conservatives

U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts has a short time frame to mend his relationship with the most conservative members of the Republican Party, some of whom are still upset after his narrow victory over tea party challenger Milton Wolf.

Less than half of GOP voters in Kansas supported Roberts during the primary, in which he beat Wolf 48 percent to 41 percent, with two other candidates splitting the remaining vote. The win came after months of attack ads from both sides, which left some tea party supporters feeling spurned.

Roberts’ campaign has begun reaching out to tea party leaders, trying to shore up support for his November contest against Greg Orman, an independent and self-described centrist who has drawn support from moderate Republicans and leads Roberts in most recent opinion polls.

“The senator is starting to try to reach out to the grassroots groups, because obviously we’re more relevant,” said Craig Gabel, a Wichita restaurant owner who leads Kansans for Liberty. “I’ve even been personally contacted by the senator myself.”

Roberts’ campaign manager, Corry Bliss, confirmed the three-term Republican is making calls to Gabel and other activists.

“The senator is reaching out to key community leaders. He’s reaching out to tea party leaders and other leaders,” Bliss said. “Our message of ‘If you want to get rid of Harry Reid and Barack Obama … vote for Pat Roberts’ is a message that appeals to a wide spectrum of Kansans.”

Jennifer Duffy, senior editor for the Cook Political Report, said the personal calls to state tea party leaders reflect veteran GOP strategist Chris LaCivita’s influence on the Roberts campaign.

“He’s got to reach out to these people,” she said. “He should have done it in the days after the primary. That should have been the first thing on the list.”

Gabel would not share what Roberts said to him, but he said he gave Roberts the benefit of the doubt.

“My words to him were ‘Senator, we’re seeing a change in your votes in the last year or so, and we’d really like to see it continue in the future.’ ”

Still, a lot of tea party groups across the state remain upset about Wolf’s defeat and resentful of the personal attacks launched against him by Roberts and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Gabel said.

During the primary campaign, Roberts and the committee repeatedly attacked Wolf, a radiologist, over Facebook posts he had made poking fun at X-rays of dead and wounded people. Those posts prompted an investigation by the state’s board of healing arts.

Deb Lucia, a tea party activist in Topeka, said the movement is split on whether to support Roberts in November.

“Some people don’t want to support Roberts at all. They just don’t. But other ones look at it and say ‘OK, we only have two choices. We’ve got Roberts or we’ve got Orman,’ ” Lucia said, opining that Orman is a liberal and that Roberts is at least “somewhat conservative.”

“But I still think there’s enough people that are hurt and upset over the campaign that a lot of them haven’t made their minds up. Some have said they’re not going to vote at all, they’re just going to skip it.”

Lucia said she will support Roberts in November.

Roberts’ effort to court voters further to the political right has left some longtime moderate supporters cold.

Rochelle Chronister, a former GOP state chairwoman who has endorsed Orman, praised the independent as someone “who is not afraid of the far right radicals” and who will work toward solutions.

Bliss said there is no split within the Republican Party about whether to support Roberts.

“We have all these leaders of our party wanting to come to Kansas to campaign for Pat Roberts, so the party is unified around Pat Roberts,” Bliss said, referring to visits from Sarah Palin, Bob Dole and U.S. Sen. John McCain last week. “If there’s one thing the Republican Party can agree upon, it’s that come January, we do not want Harry Reid to be in charge of the United States Senate.”

But some tea party activists continue to attack Roberts on social media.

Eric Varnado, a St. Marys resident who describes himself as a constitutional conservative, tweeted about Palin’s visit with disdain: “I’m guessing @SarahPalinUSA next stop will be for Susan Collins or Scott brown. Jon huntsman? Any lib rino is fine apparently.”

This story was originally published September 28, 2014 at 7:41 PM with the headline "Roberts campaign turns its focus to wooing GOP conservatives."