‘Will the real Sam Brownback please stand up?’: Kobach, Kelly fight over ex-governor
Republican Kris Kobach on Tuesday tried to distance himself from Sam Brownback – the unpopular former Kansas governor – and instead paint his Democratic opponent as the real Brownback.
Kobach’s decision to mark Sen. Laura Kelly, one of the most frequent critics of the Brownback administration, as Brownback’s true successor came at the end of an hour-long debate in Wichita sponsored by the Kansas Association of Broadcasters.
Kelly spent much of the debate saying Kobach, the secretary of state, would return Kansas to Brownback’s tax experiment and the years of budget pain that followed. She called Kobach’s comparison “absurd.”
“It seems like she wants to run against Sam Brownback and not run against me. What’s funny about that is on three of the biggest issues of this campaign, she shares the Brownback position and I oppose it,” Kobach said.
Government spending went “through the roof” under Brownback, Kobach said, adding that Kelly wants to continue to increase spending.
Second, Kobach said in 2015 Brownback signed a sales tax increase into law and that Kelly supported a proposal that year that would have raised sales tax rates even higher. Lawmakers and Brownback approved the increase to close a budget shortfall.
Third, Brownback had “no appetite” to curb illegal immigration and neither does Kelly, Kobach said.
“So the real question here is: Will the real Sam Brownback please stand up?” Kobach said, paraphrasing Eminem lyrics.
Kelly dismissed the idea that she – not Kobach – is closer to Brownback.
“That’s such a stretch that I think it’s absurd on the face of it,” Kelly said after the debate.
Kelly has centered much of her campaign on criticism of Brownback, who resigned in January to join the Trump administration. She has sought to portray herself as a repudiation of the former governor’s policies, which she says caused a “world of hurt” in Kansas.
Chief among those policies: the 2012 income tax cuts championed by Brownback. The tax cuts brought national attention on Brownback, who once described them as an experiment.
By 2014, the state began experiencing budget problems that continued in one form or another until the Legislature reversed much of the cuts in 2017. Kansas again has a revenue surplus and lawmakers have approved hundreds of millions in new education spending.
“We can either go backward and repeat the devastation of the last eight years under Sam Brownback, or we can elect a governor who will work like the devil to rebuild our state,” Kelly said during the debate.
“Kris Kobach has promised to bring back the Brownback tax experiment and cut even more,” she said.
Kobach supports once again cutting income tax rates – along with sales and property taxes. But he has also vowed to cut spending, something he says Brownback did not do.
Kobach has said he will cut spending through attrition, by holding positions open as older state employees retire.
For his part, independent Greg Orman’s campaign indicated neither Kelly nor Kobach offers a significant break from Brownback.
“Whether you vote for Kelly or you vote for Kobach, you’re getting a third term of Sam Brownback,” Orman spokesman Nick Connors said.
During the debate, Orman tried to persuade the audience that the election is not a binary choice between Kelly and Kobach. On taxes, he has indicated a desire to grow revenue by expanding the state’s economy.
“We don’t have to choose fear and hate. We don’t have to vote for a bad candidate just to avoid a worse one. Kansans deserve better. If we continue to support the same tired political candidates we are going to get the same tired results,” Orman said.
Public polls since the August primary have placed Orman’s support at about 10 percent. Asked about the polling after the debate, Orman called them “partisan polls” and said it is clear to him that voters are gravitating to his campaign as he travels the state. Orman also said he’s in the race to the end.
This story was originally published October 16, 2018 at 3:09 PM.