Here’s the scoop on Ben & Jerry’s ice cream founders dipping into Kansas politics

Ben and Jerry of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream fame have announced plans to create a special flavor to support Wichita Democratic congressional candidate James Thompson, who’s challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Ron Estes in the Kansas 4th District.

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield announced that plan over the weekend in conjunction with the national progressive website MoveOn.org.

The pair and the site are collaborating in a contest to formulate a flavor and name for ice creams seeking to boost the candidacies of seven progressive House candidates before the Nov. 6 general election. The site to suggest a flavor and name for the Thompson-themed ice cream is at https://act.moveon.org/survey/benjerrycontest/.

“We need to come up with seven amazing ice cream flavors (and flavor names) that not only taste great but also capture the essence of what each candidate stands for,” Cohen and Greenfield said in an announcement. “We’ll select the winner and make a batch of each flavor that we’ll raffle off to support the candidates.”

The political flavors won’t be marketed as an official company ice cream and won’t be available in stores.

The Thompson campaign was delighted.

“We were really excited about their interest, and over the weekend volunteers had a lot of fun talking about flavors,” campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Yeager said in a statement. “Of course the national interest in our effort is helpful. Every day we see something that proves James Thompson’s campaign has built winning momentum.”

Cohen and Greenfield have long been active in progressive politics and leaned on their status as ice cream titans to get their point across.

During the 2016 election, Cohen and Greenfield created “Bernie’s Yearning,” a custom flavor supporting the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Their stated goal with this year’s ice cream political promotion is to try to help flip Congress from Republican to Democratic control.

“We need a Democratic majority to check President Trump’s unrestrained power,” they said in their joint announcement. “And we also need to send progressive champions to Congress who will fix our health care system with Medicare for All, protect clean air and water, and get big money out of politics.

Thompson, who was endorsed by Sanders at a massive rally in Wichita in July, has embraced those goals as key issues in his campaign.

In addition to Thompson, Cohen and Greenfield also plan custom flavors supporting House candidates Jess King of Pennsylvania, Lauren Underwood of Illinois, Aftab Pureval of Ohio, J.D. Scholten of Iowa, Amma Campa Najjar of California and Stephanie Rose Spauling of Colorado.

This story was originally published September 24, 2018 at 9:37 AM.