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Why the Next Governor of Kansas will be a Democrat
by Jack Cashill

I had to squint a little to read it, but there was no mistaking the message on the bumper sticker. It read: CARLA STOVALL—WHEN 27 MILLION JUST ISN’T ENOUGH. “Uh, Oh!” I thought. “Bleeding Kansas is about ready to start bleeding again.”

If the message is not yet clear to every breathing Kansan, it will be soon enough: the popular, attractive and genuinely charming Republican Attorney General, Carla Stovall, has declared for governor. But a whole lot of people do not want to see her win. And we’re not talking here about Democrats.

The number on the bumper sticker refers to dollars, as in the $27 million in tobacco booty that Stovall awarded to her own former law firm, Entz & Chanay of Topeka. Though technically legal, this gesture transcended the time-honored chicanery of rewarding one’s campaign contributors. In fact, it represented just about the boldest bit of public piratehood since Teapot Dome, especially as it was awarded without the benefit of competitive bidding.

“I don’t think the low bid is the way to choose your lawyers,” Stovall told a legislative budget committee in the summer of 1997 a year after the decision was announced. One guesses not.

To be fair, Missouri AG Jay Nixon has been equally cavalier in rewarding his campaign contributors with tobacco money. But that’s Missouri. And those are Democrats. One expects as much.

Stovall has no easy rationale. By and large, Republicans aren’t keen on the pillaging of a legitimate industry, even a useless one like tobacco, and are even less enthused about her one-woman shakedown of a productive company like Microsoft. Indeed, Kansas is now one of only two Republican states to press on after the U.S. Justice Department has agreed to settle up.

Money may trump principle on the tobacco front—what politico could resist?

But why, one asks, has Stovall persisted with Microsoft? The Wall Street Journal argues that Stovall and the other AGs “won’t let go of an opportunity for publicity and a big-time scalp to wave in front of the media back home.”

A retiring AG has little need for scalps, but an aspiring governor? That’s another story.

Out of the Ashes
Stovall herself had implied that she would not run for governor. No, more than implied, she had promised Lieutenant Governor Gary Sherrer that she would run under him on his ticket. “If she had kept her commitment,” lamented Sherrer, “I think we could have had a united ticket that I could have led.”

Responded Stovall cryptically: “Anything about our private conversation, I think he and I need to keep to ourselves.” Sherrer is still brooding.

What caused her to rethink her obligations? In a breathtakingly nimble gesture, even for a politician, Stovall attributes her change of heart to the recent attack on America.

“Sept. 11 changed the whole world,” Stovall announced, “Prior to that, I had been absolutely happy and looking forward to leaving the demands of public office. But the 11th in my heart changed things, and I just began to have doubts that it was time to leave.

”She has a point. In times of national crises, we need people who are not afraid to step up and sue private industry. So moved was Stovall that, while the rest of America was busy grieving or getting anthrax shots, she was able to design and commission a poll and analyze the results—all within six weeks of the tragedy. This presumes, of course, that she launched the process at least a day or two after Sept. 11.

Although she was coy about the exact figures, Stovall did admit, “Our poll numbers are very good.” The polling data show her winning a one-on-one primary duel with the main conservative in the race, State Treasurer Tim Shallenburger, and going on to defeat likely Democratic nominee Kathleen Sebelius, the state insurance commissioner, in the November 2002 election.

But there’s a catch. The only reason those numbers are good is because most Kansans do not know about the $27 million. Before this thing is over, all of them will.

The Untarnishing
Just days before her announcement in October, The Kansas City Star’s political columnist Steve Kraaske described Stovall as “tarnished because she named her former law firm as co-counsel in the national tobacco case.”

In the stories about Stovall since her announcement, however, the tarnish has been polished away. Could it be that Stovall’s public role in the “Dump Kay O’Connor” campaign—she was the first to ask for O’Connor’s resignation—was designed to remind the media of her usefulness and to help them forget about Tobaccogate?

Quite likely. The establishment media have always liked Stovall. While Ingram’s was breaking the tobacco story in 1998, The Star was warmly endorsing Stovall for a second term as attorney general. With the media’s help, she raked in more votes than even Gov. Bill Graves in that year’s election.

What makes her attractive? As Star columnist Steve Kraaske notes with approval, Stovall is “anathema to the far-right wing of the Republican Party.” For many in the media, a little right bashing can put a glean on even the dullest of politicians.

Stovall’s strategy is apparent already. Dick Bond, a Stovall supporter and Johnson County power broker, has already begun to compare Shallenburger’s candidacy to David Miller’s quixotic attempt to unseat popular governor Bill Graves in 1998.

But unlike Miller, an intense pro-life activist who was easily caricatured, State Treasurer Shallenburger is a well-liked, pragmatic Main Street conservative about as extreme as Bob Dole. To convert Shallenburger into the Mullah Omar will take some doing.

And unlike Graves, who bent just enough to keep many conservatives in his camp, Stovall shows no give at all. Her choice of running mate, House Speaker Kent Glasscock, offers little consolation. He is already on record as a proponent of higher taxes.

Game Plans
In the public campaign, the one everyone is about to see, Stovall trumpets her record as a “great attorney general” (her words) and attacks Shallenburger as a “far right extremist.” For his part, Shallenburger trumpets his record as a fiscal conservative and attacks Stovall as an enemy of business.

On the direct-mail front, Stovall targets women and tells them Shallenburger will outlaw abortion and have them in burkas by the end of a first term. Shallenburger targets social conservatives and merely compares his record to Stovall’s on abortion and guns.

Stovall may have the media in her pocket, but Shallenburger has the grass roots, the ones distributing the bumper stickers a year before the election. It’s a close race. Gary Sherrer finally endorses Stovall, but on the way to the polls he sees at least a dozen minivans with the CARLA STOVALL—WHEN 27 MILLION JUST ISN’T ENOUGH bumper sticker and votes his conscience for Shallenburger, who wins by a single dangling chad.

Meanwhile, back in Topeka, the otherwise unelectable Kathleen Sebelius high-fives her happy handful of vestigial Democrats. She needed a Shallenburger win. The conservatives would never have voted for her even against Stovall.

The “moderate” Republicans, however, would not deign to support a man who would even think of putting them in burkas. They’ll defect in a heartbeat. And besides, a Sebelius sign in a Mission Hills yard is worth a whole lot more than one in Merriam.

Literally.

The views expressed in this column are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect those of Ingram's Magazine.