Sarah Palin, John McCain, NRA line up to help Sen. Pat Roberts
Declaring "I am tea party," Sarah Palin on Thursday hit the campaign trail in Kansas to convince Sunflower State voters that imperiled Republican Sen. Pat Roberts is an bona fide champion of the ideological mulishness another of his surrogates lambasted just days before.
"He's not wishy-washy on the fence like you-know-who, the other guy," Palin said, according to the Washington Post, referring to Roberts' opponent, independent candidate Greg Orman, who's given the incumbent an unexpected run for his money. "I am so thankful because we need those with that stiff spine, with the principles that are so invicted [sic] within them, that they take a side."
Palin specifically lauded Roberts for supporting Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, last year during his marathon anti-Obamacare floor speech that resulted in a government shutdown. She argued it demonstrated that Roberts is "one of the few senators fulfilling campaign promises, doing what the American people asked him to do."
Since her brief stint as the GOP's vice presidential nominee, the former Alaska governor-turned reality TV star has made a career out of heckling members of both parties whose heels do not dig into her particular mold of conservatism. And she's just the latest in a string of the party's heavy hitters who've trickled through the Sunflower State hoping to help Roberts hang onto his seat as Republicans eye a Senate takeover.
Earlier this week, former Senate Majority Leader and 1996 Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole lent his stature as a prominent Kansan to Roberts' cause, bemoaning the very intransigence that Palin promoted. Recalling fondly the largely defunct days of bipartisan deal-brokering, Dole said in passing reference to the Republican's tea party wing: "Some of those guys are so far on the right they're gonna fall out of the Capitol."
One reporter challenged Roberts to declare which of the competing messages aligned most closely with his values.
"Both," he reportedly answered. "How 'bout that."
Regardless, though, Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, suggested Wednesday during his own stump through the state, the ultimate objective is to defeat Orman. He joined a chorus of others in the GOP who have called Orman a Democrat in an independent's clothing.
"We all know what he is, let's be honest: He's a Democrat," McCain said, according to the Kansas City Star. "He walks like a duck and he quacks like a duck and he is a duck."
Orman has said he'll vote with whatever party holds the majority. But if the Senate has 50 Republicans and 49 Democrats, he stands to swing control to either party.
"Tell us who you're with. Tell us who you're for. Tell us who you're going to caucus with," McCain said. "Shouldn't the people of Kansas have a right to know that?"
Palin, McCain's onetime running mate on the 2008 Republican presidential ticket, offered her own signature rhetoric on that point: "I know 'independence,'" Palin said, punning the name of the Kansas town she was in. "Supporting Barack Obama, supporting Obamacare, supporting amnesty, supporting Harry Reid? That's not independent. That's someone who's trying to snooker ya, Kansas."
The National Rifle Association apparently agrees. On Thursday the gun-rights powerhouse announced a $100,000 TV airtime buy in Wichita and Topeka, and said it will also launch mail and digital campaigns targeting Orman. In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, the group made the case that "a vote for Greg Orman is a vote for Obama's extreme gun control agenda."
