| One of the mantras of the Senate Guru blog is the notion of "expanding the map," increasing the number of competitive seats this cycle. "Expand the Map!" is, of course, the name of the ActBlue page maintained by Senate Guru, and it is also what Democrats have to do to attain a 60-seat, filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate.
One such potential battleground state in which Democrats can expand the map is Kansas, where former Congressman Jim Slattery just secured the Democratic nomination and will face off against Bush-cover-up-artist Pat Roberts. Rasmussen Reports saw KS-Sen become a single-digit race in June, only to have Roberts heighten the intensity of his negative political attacks against Slattery. If Slattery can overcome Roberts' attack machine, KS-Sen has the potential to be a very competitive race. Senate Guru profiled Slattery's background almost a year ago, when rumors that Slattery was considering a 2008 Senate bid first arose. For further breakdown of the myths vs. the facts of the Roberts record, visit 40 Years is Long Enough. And please consider a contribution to former Congressman Slattery via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page.
SENATE GURU: Congressman Slattery, thank you very much for taking the time to share your thoughts with the Senate Guru community. To kick this off, I have to remind our readers that no Democrat has won a U.S. Senate race in Kansas since 1932, and I have to ask you how your campaign is going to buck this three-quarters-of-a-century trend.
JIM SLATTERY: Well, I happen to believe that the people of Kansas this year are really looking for change, and they want to fundamentally change what's going on in Washington for a lot of reasons. The long story short is that the people of Kansas are fiscally conservative and they're very upset that we are now running the largest deficit in our nation's history. They're upset that, in 2001, we had $250 billion surpluses and we were talking about paying off the national debt; and, today, we have added $3 trillion to our national debt since 2001, and they are surprised to learn that Senator Roberts voted for that. They're also surprised to learn that Senator Roberts voted for the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska that Senator McCain railed against. As somebody who has paid a lot of taxes, I take that personal, and I deeply resent the federal government wasting my tax dollars as they have been doing.
And, a lot of Kansans are very worried about the War in Iraq, and they're beginning to sort through it all. They're upset that we went into this war based on faulty, inaccurate intelligence data and very naive assumptions. Many of them are surprised to learn that Senator Roberts was Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee during the lead up to the War in Iraq. His committee was responsible for getting this intelligence data right, and it was wrong. So, those two issues are powerful in this election; and, in addition to that, Senator Roberts has voted against requiring automakers to improve fuel efficiency in our vehicles, year after year, up 'til this election year. I believe that, had that legislation been passed, we would be in a far different situation today, with regard to the import of oil from the OPEC countries.
In addition to that, Senator Roberts also opposes the bipartisan legislation to empower Medicare to buy drugs from the drugmakers in volume at discount prices. So those are some of the issues that upset Kansans and some fo the reasons why they want change. This year, we're going to offer them that change.
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SG: You mentioned fiscal conservatism. From what I've read about your record in Congress, what stands out I think can best be described as "fiscally conservative and environmentally progressive." Do you think that's accurate and could you share with our readers a bit about your time in Congress?
JS: I'd be happy to. I am proud of the fact that, during the 1980's and 90's while I was in the Congress, I was known as a deficit hawk. I'm proud of that because I think that the second most important responsibility of the federal government is to manage our nation's financial affairs wisely and prudently. Regretably, in the last few years, the Bush-Cheney fiscal policy has been reckless, irresponsible, immoral. We have been, in effect, mortgaging the future of our country. I call it inter-generational robbery. I deeply, deeply oppose these policies that have driven down the value of the dollar, which, in turn, drives up the price of gasoline.
Now, on the environmental front, I have, I think, an excellent environmental record. I was one of the group of nine who wrote the re-authorization of the Clean Air Act in 1990; and, that was one of the most significant environmental achievements of that time. I was also involved in working on the Resource Conservation Recovery Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act; and, every major piece of environmental legislation that passed during those times went through the Energy and Commerce Committee, and I was actively involved in all that legislation.
SG: Another thing you mentioned before was Pat Roberts' time as Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. I think that's the role with which Pat Roberts is most notoriously identified across the blogosphere. But intelligence oversight isn't exactly an everyday issue like gas prices and health care. Does Roberts' failure on intelligence oversight resonate with Kansans?
JS: Many Kansans are coming up to me and just volunteering to me that they're aware that Senator Roberts was Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and they're aware also that, prior to the 2004 election, he used all of his influence to slow down, if not block, the investigations into exactly who manipulated the data prior to the war. He blocked the effort to get into the White House and identify the people that were responsible for cherry picking the intelligence data that was absolutely crucial to us getting into this war. The thing that I am very upset about is Senator Roberts and other Senators could have and should have told the American people one simple truth and that is Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. We knew that prior to the outbreak of the war in 2003, and the American public was misled into believing that Saddam was somehow responsible - a tragic, tragic mistake, and the people responsible should be held accountable. And Senator Roberts is one of those who should be held to account.
SG: Right upon your entry into the Senate race, you were greeted by attack ads from Pat Roberts calling you a Gucci-loafer-wearing Georgetown fan and other fairly childish attacks. Did you expect Roberts to go so negative so quickly, and how do you plan on responding to the Roberts campaign, which has pretty much signaled that it will be one of the campaigns most predicated on negative attacks of any campaign across the country?
JS: I was surprised, frankly, that Senator Roberts elected to go negative on me before I even announced, if you can believe that. Literally, I had not even announced my candidacy, and Senator Roberts was running a negative ad on me. He has now spent about a million dollars on negative attack ads on me before the primary, before I even got the nomination. And this is after having promised that he was not going to do that. So their data shows them exactly what our data shows us, and that is once the people of Kansas understand clearly that Senator Roberts helped lead us into this war in Iraq based on faulty intelligence data, and once they learn that he voted for the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska and then took $20,000 in campaign contributions from Alaska's senior Senator Ted Stevens, and then voted year after year against requiring the automakers to improve the fuel efficiency in our vehicles, they want to replace him, and his numbers drop like a rock.
What Senator Roberts wants to do is destroy my credibility personally before this race begins so the people of Kansas won't listen to what I have to say. But that isn't going to work. We're very confident that Senator Roberts' record is going to be completely disclosed; and, when it is, the people of Kansas are going to reject him.
SG: The brunt of the attacks from the Roberts' camp have focused on your work over the last several years with the law firm Wiley Rein LLP. What have you done to allay people's concerns about your role as a lobbyist, particularly in terms of making your client roster transparent, and what, if any, impact on Kansas has your work in the lobbying role had?
JS: First of all, I am very proud of all of the work that I have done as a lawyer-lobbyist with Wiley Rein. I never took a client whose cause I did not believe in. I never asked anybody ever in the public sector to do anything that I did not think was in the public interest. I have disclosed all of my clients. I'm proud of all of them. I've explained to the people of Kansas - and they're beginning to understand this - that I worked for the wheat industry. I worked for the Kansas City Southern [Railway]. I worked for other Midwest and Kansas and American companies who were facing very difficult national and international problems. We helped them and did so successfully, and I'm very proud of that. So I make no apologies, and the work that I have done, especially in the international arena, will help me be a far better Senator. I'll walk onto the floor of the United States Senate and I will know more about international trade and globalization than ninety percent of the members of the Unied States Senate.
SG: When people think of Kansas Democrats, the first person that usually comes to mind is the very popular Governor Kathleen Sebelius. How supportive has the Governor been and how will she play a role in your campaign between now and Election Day?
JS: Governor Sebelius has done a very good job here in Kansas, and she is a very popular second-term Governor. She has won, I think, four statewide elections in this red state, and she has demonstrated to the world that fiscally conservative moderate Democrats can win elections in Kansas. I have demonstrated that earlier in my Congressional career, and I think we're going to show it again this year.
SG: Do you think Barack Obama's Kansas roots will help increase turnout, particularly among Democratic-leaning independent voters?
JS: Barack Obama's presence on the ticket is going to help in two very important ways in Kansas. Number one, it's going to help with the turnout - the African-American turnout will be historically large, and, in addition to that, I think there are going to be thousands of new, first-time voters come to the polls this Fall. I also believe that this Fall turnout for the under-25 group will be historically large.
SG: I've read that Bobby Kennedy had a significant influence on you in your youth as you were beginning to get into politics. How did he impact your politics and who else was a major influence on you politically when you were growing up?
JS: As a young, Irish-Catholic kid growing up in rural Kansas, I used to run home from grade school to listen to President John Kennedy's news conferences in 1961 and '62. And then, in 1968, I had the opportunity to work a little bit on Senator Robert Kennedy's campaign for the Presidency, and I met him, and I was incredibly impressed with his passion for public service and his passion for the issues of the day. It's very interesting that there are a lot of similarities between 1968 and 2008. In 1968, we were embroiled in an unpopular war in southeast Asia that was draining our treasury and draining our human resources. And there were all kinds of economic concerns and tensions at home. Today, it's not as bad as it was in 1968, but there are a lot of similarities.
SG: Pat Roberts is calculated to have voted the way George W. Bush wants him to around 90% of the time. Do you think the average Kansan agrees with George W. Bush 90% of the time, and how would you grade George W. Bush's performance in office?
JS: Well, first of all, I think that Senator Roberts voted for everything that President Bush wanted between 2001 and 2005. That's during the time when he was casting decisive votes on fiscal policy and on the War in Iraq. The people of Kansas, I think, overwhelmingly disagree with President Bush on both the war, the decisions around it and the way it has been managed, and on his fiscal policy. I think that Kansans today view President Bush unfavorably in overwhelming numbers. I personally believe that President George Bush Jr. has been probably one of the worst Presidents of my lifetime, without question.
SG: It's worth noting that the polling outfit Survey USA as recently as this past May found Bush's approval in Kansas to be down to 39% and his disapproval to be up to 59%. So do you think you might work a mention of George W. Bush into a speech or two between now and November?
JS: Certainly will. And I'll be reminding people in Kansas that Roberts voted for the Bush policies that they don't like. It's that simple. If you don't like George Bush because of what he has done, you ought to take a good, hard look at the Roberts record because he's been for Bush's policies right down the line on every significant thing until the last year with the election in sight.
SG: To shift gears a little bit, I understand that, when you filed the paperwork to officially enter the Senate race, you were accompanied by your son Mike, who also filed papers to run for State Representative. How has that experience been, sharing the ups and downs of the campaign trail with your son?
JS: It's been really fun and interesting and challenging. Michael is right now involved in a recount in his election, that's only three votes deciding that election, the primary he was involved in.
SG: What's the best piece of advice that you gave your son about running for office?
JS: Work hard, and go out and meet the people and deal with them directly, eyeball to eyeball.
SG: Finally, there's a lot of talk in the media, in the blogosphere especially, about working to reach a 60-seat Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate to overcome what has been a record rate of Republican obstruction, with use and abuse of the filibuster. What message would you like to send to the progressive blogosphere in terms of the attention that the Kansas Senate race should get with so many Senate races this year getting a great deal of attention?
JS: Well, first of all, I'd say that the difference between Senator Roberts and me is stark on the very important, real issues affecting this country. And, Kansas is a state that is changing significantly as evidenced by the success of Governor Sebelius. In addition to that, from a very practical standpoint, Kansas is a state where we can win with a limited amount of resources compared to many other states. The cost of running a campaign in Kansas is a fraction of what it is in many other states. This is an inexpensive state to work in, and it will be a very inexpensive race to win.
SG: With that, I want to thank you very much for your time, Congressman Slattery. I wish you very good luck over the next ninety days. |
