Pass the mud, please

I'm growing more and more disgusted with the Pat Roberts campaign each time his spokesmodel Ashley McManus opens her mouth.

Of course, Pat Roberts has always said he's tired of the way campaigns resort to slinging mud instead of focusing on the issues. After his first $50,000 ad-buy (in April), apparently the type of shoes Jim Slattery wears is considered an issue.

Now, in a recent story in the Washington D.C. newspaper The Hill, McManus is up to her typical underhanded, immature snarkiness.

Ashley McManus, a Roberts spokeswoman, said Slattery’s criticism of the war is “a bizarre thing for Jim Slattery to say, given that when he was in Congress he voted for us to go to war with Iraq [in Operation Desert Storm].

Are you serious? Is this woman really going to have us believe that voting for Operation: Desert Storm is the same thing as voting to preemptively invade a sovereign nation based on faulty intelligence (which her candidate would help cover up later on)?

Maybe that kind of stuff goes over in Virginia, Ashley, but here in Kansas, we're not buying it.

As the story went on, McManus continued to prove that she and the Roberts campaign have permanently waved bye-bye to reality.

“We look forward to a campaign based on the issues and the differences between Pat Roberts’s tireless service to Kansas and Jim Slattery, who stopped working for Kansas so he could enrich himself working for special interests,” McManus said.

Just because you heard Pat Roberts' voice at the beginning of the "gucci loafer" radio ad saying "I'm Pat Roberts, and I approved this message," that doesn't mean he...well...approved the message.

It's not just the Roberts campaign though that has separated themselves from reality. Republican consultants too seem to be basking in the false sense of security.

“I’m sure [Slattery]’ll be able to raise some money, and I’m sure that the senatorial committee will come in and spend some money too, because they’re definitely raising a lot, but I think Pat Roberts is very well-respected throughout Kansas, both in the eastern and western part of the state. And when the ads start coming up, I think that Pat Roberts will probably pull away,” [Republican consultant Aaron] Trost said.

As we've covered here extensively, the public polling data doesn't back up this claim of Roberts' popularity.

Though his overall approval rating is 54% as of 4/25, it is heavily propped up by a 70% approval rating in Western Kansas. In Eastern Kansas and Wichita, where the overwhelming majority of voters in the state live, his approval ratings are 52 and 48%. Hardly a slam-dunk for a guy who has been in Congress for 20-some years and has never got less than 62% of the vote in November.

For Roberts to win this race, he must do extremely well in Eastern Kansas and Wichita and he must pull a good number of moderates and independents into his fold. His numbers among moderates and independents? 51 and 54%.

But honestly, what does the public know about who the public likes.