Greg Orman-- Better Than Pat Roberts… But He's No Rick Weiland Or Shenna Bellows

Several Democratic Party partisans, who apparently don't understand what Blue America is all about, have been pestering me to add Kansas independent, Greg Orman, to our Senate page. That's never going to happen. We prefer an independent to a garden variety Democrat any day of the week or any minute of any day-- but independents like Bernie Sanders who represent independence not just from the 2 corrupt DC party establishments, but independence of mind when it comes to the interests of the 99%. The two most independent Senate candidates running this year are Shenna Bellows, the progressive running against Beltway Insider Susan Collins for the Maine seat, and South Dakota prairie populist Rick Weiland who is being opposed by both party bosses, Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid.

Neither Bellows nor Weiland is a fence straddler like Orman. There doesn't seem anything "independent" about him except that he's had the good sense to not join either wretched political party. But when it comes to who he really is… mostly he's trying to get into the Senate without letting anyone know. We know what he's not-- a member of the GOP or a member of the Democratic Party. But we don't really know where he stands on the important issues-- because he doesn't want Kansas voters to know. He's probably counting on voters to say to themselves, "Pat Roberts is a know quantity and he just sucks; let's try this mysterious rich guy… he couldn't be any worse."

The mysterious rich guy who has never held elective office is said to have a net worth in the $80 million range and he did it through financial gambling (Denali Partners) and is close with convicted finance criminal Rajat Gupta (formerly of Golman Sachs, currently of the Otisville Federal Prison). He was a member of the Young Republicans at Princeton University, worked for the George Bush the First campaign and writes on his campaign site that "One of my heroes as a child was Ronald Reagan." He has been a member of both the GOP and the Democrats at one time or another. This year he said "I’ve tried both parties; and, like most Kansans, I’ve been disappointed." More than being with one party organization or another, he seems to be an austerity advocate and backs whichever party is espousing that as policy. In 2008 he almost ran against Pat Roberts as a Democrat… almost. He dropped out of the primary. He has a pretty thorough issues page on his website and he's better than Roberts on every single issue without any exception. Example: Roberts has a ProgressivePunch lifetime crucial vote score of zero on family planning-- a zero on abortion and a zero on availability of contraceptives. He's a doctrinaire right-wing zombie when it comes to all issues involving women and women's health. This is what Orman had to say about it:

We’ve spent a lot of time over the last two decades debating whether or not women should have the right to make decisions about their own reproductive health. As a man, I’ll never have to face some of the decisions that women have to make. I know the women of Kansas are smart, and I trust them to make their own decisions about their reproductive health.

I believe it’s time for our government to move past this issue and start focusing on other important issues, such as healthcare and higher education affordability,tax code simplification,and fixing our broken immigration system.

Not the answer I would give-- but people who would give answers like mine would have no chance to win a Senate seat in a red state like Kansas. Orman wants to win, so he's holding back a bit-- but not entirely. You come away from reading his positions convinced he's a solid middle-of-the-road kind of guy, sort of an Eisenhower Republican or Clinton Democrat. Not what we're looking for at Blue America, but possibly exactly what Kansas voters sick of right-wing extremism are looking for. Yesterday Dylan Scott, writing for TPM, asked what exactly Democrats think they're getting by backing Orman. And he doesn't just mean Kansas Democrats. The Party Machine in DC is betting on him as well-- big.

Orman's tight-rope walk on Obamacare is emblematic of his overall approach. The Associated Press reported earlier this month that Orman said he would have opposed the health care reform law-- but he also said the Republican pledges to repeal it were impractical.

"It sounds like a hollow political promise they can't keep," he told the AP.

A look at Orman's issues page on his campaign website shows that he takes a similiarly nuanced approach to contentious issues like immigration and gun control.

In discussing illegal immigration, he starts with tough talk on border security-- and Republicans have always said that that should be the first priority.

"By tough, I mean we need to secure our borders," he says. "It’s something that we’ve been working on, but we’re not there yet."

But eventually, Orman endorses a path to citizenship-- which has been a line in the sand for most Democrats on the issue.

"The 11 million undocumented individuals in America should be required to register with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by a certain date, pay a fine or perform community service as an acknowledgment that they’ve broken the law, hold down a job, pay taxes, and obey our laws," he says, "and ultimately, at that point, if they want to get in line and apply for citizenship, they should be able to do so."

He follows the same tack on gun control. He starts by saying that he owns two handguns and states that he has a strong belief in Second Amendment rights.

But Orman then notes that he had to go through a background check to purchase them-- and expresses support for requiring the same, including for purchases at gun shows, which has been a sticking point in the gun control debate.

"While there are likely other illegal ways for criminals to get firearms, we shouldn’t make it easy for a violent offender or a mentally ill individual to get a gun," he says. "The process for me took a few minutes and ultimately resulted in me being able to buy my handguns without delay."

Then on other issues like abortion and campaign finance reform, Orman stakes out the more explicitly Democratic position. He says that he would vote for a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United, as Senate Democrats did this month, and that he supports a woman's right to choose.

"I believe it’s time for our government to move past this issue and start focusing on other important issues," he says on the latter, "such as healthcare and higher education affordability, tax code simplification, and fixing our broken immigration system."

Despite all this apparent ideological alignment, Democrats are never going to publicly side with Orman. That would be the kiss of death after the independent label has gotten him this far.

"That would really run counter to his message," Chapman Rackaway, a political scientist at Fort Hays State University, told TPM earlier this month. "You'd see his numbers plummet. That's easy opposition material for Roberts."

I'd rather see him win than Roberts. But when it comes to investing time and resources, we'll be sticking with Shenna Bellows and Rick Weiland. You should too.