10/29/2003

Senator May Take Direct Role in House Candidate's Campaign.

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) indicated yesterday that he soon would break his official neutrality in the GOP primary and endorse centrist Adam Taff to challenge Democratic Rep. Dennis Moore.

Roberts so far has avoided endorsing a candidate. The state's junior senator did attend a Taff fundraiser last month and will not be attending a fundraiser for Taff's rival, Kris Kobach, next month.

Now Roberts is making it clear he'll play a more direct role in Taff's campaign, saying he wants to avoid a potentially contentious primary between centrists and conservatives.

"I am a friend of Adam Taff, and immediately after the race, I told him I'd support him again," Roberts said, referring to Taff's failed 2002 bid against Moore , which he backed. "That's about where it sits."

Taff lost to Moore by 7,213 votes out of nearly 213,000 cast.

GOP officials in Washington and Kansas insist that the 3rd District, in the Kansas City suburbs, is one of the most Republican seats in the country held by a Democrat.

Taff's general consultant, Joe Gaylord, said Roberts's move is part of a larger Republican effort to coalesce around one candidate and come out strong in the general election.

Gaylord added that the campaign has invited a slew of Republican elder statesmen, including former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, to its Nov. 10 kickoff in the district.

But Roberts' public backing of Taff also runs the risk of sharpening longtime fault lines between Republicans in the district rather than ironing out differences, as many Republicans would like.

The senator, now in his second term, is a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a Washington group dedicated to electing centrist Republicans, which recently gave Taff $5,000.

Meanwhile, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) has kept his distance from the race. Brownback, the state's senior senator, is to the right of Roberts, garnering more conservative ratings from the National Journal.

Other Republicans in the Kansas delegation are officially neutral. A National Republican Congressional Committee official said the Kansas members believe they should get behind Taff early to avoid a bloody primary.

Several Republican congressional leaders - including Speaker Dennis Hastert ( Ill. ), House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier ( Calif. ) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas - are supporting Taff.

Kobach, Taff's rival - who, unlike Taff, is pro-life - dismissed the so-called split between centrists and conservatives in the district. He added that Republicans' failure to win in 2002 was not so much the doing of GOP voters as it was Taff's inability to reach out to conservative voters.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Reps. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) and John Hostettler (R-Ind.) have endorsed Kobach, whose campaign spokesman called a "common-sense conservative."

State Sen. Patricia Lightner also is seeking the GOP House nomination.

The debate surrounding the Kansas congressional primary comes at the same time that both major parties have effectively squashed potentially divisive primary contests across the nation.

In South Carolina , Democrats have rallied around Senate candidate Inez Tenenbaum. In Washington state, Democrats are uniformly backing businessman Don Barbieri to run for outgoing GOP Rep. George Nethercutt's seat. In Oklahoma, Republicans - led by retiring Sen. Don Nickles - have more or less anointed Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humphreys their Senate candidate.

For now, Roberts wants to avoid pigeonholing Taff, a former naval aviator. "I wouldn't classify him as a moderate," the senator said shortly after casting his vote Tuesday for Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt (R) to become Environmental Protection Agency chief. "I just classify him as an exciting Republican candidate."

He added: "The problem in that district is people get labels, and then all of a sudden you have a huge battle going in the 3rd District, and we repeat our mistakes of the past, and a Democrat wins."