The State of the Kansas 3rd Congressional District Race

Those of you who know me well know that I have agonized over this race for months. You also know that, while I am very outspoken about politics and political theory, I am not ordinarily inclined to make strong statements about any individual candidate. I believe that a review of my public writings on the various political sites to which I belong would show that I have tried, very hard, to be fair and objective in my comments, and have not once stated strong support for any candidate...until now.

I serve as the Kansas Director of Education and Strategic Planning for ResistNet. In that capacty, I felt it was my solemn responsibility to learn everything I possibly could about each of the three potential Tea Party candidates in the race so that I could intelligently respond to any questions sent my way. Over the months, I have attended nearly every public event where these candidates were present, listened carefully, observed their interactions with others, studied their websites and listened to their recorded interviews with the Independence Caucus group. I got to know them on a personal level - I knew none of them, even slightly, prior to the beginning of the election process - and found that they are all good people, with honorable intentions. Making my decision on who to personally support proved almost impossible.

At the end of January, I received an email from Kelly Wymer, ResistNet's Assistant Regional Coordinator for the North Central Region, asking me to please check out a new candidate who had entered the race, Craig McPherson, and let the group know what I found out. I had never heard of Mr. McPherson, Dennis Moore had recently announced his intent to retire, and I felt that the new candidates were coming out of the woodwork. I did a few searches, turned up little of interest, and this was the text of my response to Kelly's request:

So far, this guy is as much of an unknown as I am! There's an artist by the same name who turns up in all the searches....but I can't find anything beyond the article you linked below on this guy. Personally, I am inclined to have little interest in the opportunists who have thrown their hats in the ring since Moore announced his retirement. Time will tell, I suppose!

April

I was dismissive, to say the least, of Mr. McPherson's candidacy.

In the ensuing months, I heard little of Craig McPherson. I read the pieces he had posted online and found them to be well-written and on target. I wanted to know more about this candidate, but did not anticipate him being a game changer.

Then, on March 20th, I attended the 3rd District Candidate Forum, held at Blue Valley NW High School, the first such forum that had included Mr. McPherson. Even in the restricted format, where answers must, necessarily, be very brief, I was surprised and impressed with Mr. McPherson's responses. I was not the only one - he was declared the "unofficial" winner of the forum by Political Chips. This was the first time I really gave him any serious consideration. He had not yet completed the Independence Caucus vetting process, which includes an in-depth, two hour interview loaded with difficult, probing questions and long, detailed answers. I urged Mr. McPherson to please complete the vetting process so that we could all learn more about him. He did so on April 11th (whether in response to my urging or not, I have no idea), the interview was posted online on the 12th, and I listened to it within a few hours. I was impressed beyond words!

Never before have I heard any political candidate with such an incredible grasp of the Constitution and Founding principles. I listened as Mr. McPherson, in a casual, conversational manner, tied several of the major issues of today to debates and discussions held by the Founders over 200 years ago. His justification for his positions was rooted in the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the Federalist Papers and other writings of the Founding Fathers. He was not looking to popular sentiment to form his positions, he was looking to Washington, Franklin, Hamilton - and obviously knew them extemely well, no reference materials required. For the first time, I was excited about the 3rd Congressional District race.

Since listening to the interview, I have been doing my homework. Mr. McPherson mentioned having attended Claremont McKenna College, calling it "one of the few colleges out there that still has a good number of conservative faculty members." A quick Google search revealed that Claremont McKenna is ranked as one of the 10 most selective colleges in the United States, with an acceptance rate of only 16%. Numerous organizations, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and U.S. News and World Report, have ranked Claremont McKenna among the best and/or "happiest" colleges in America. These days, happiness in an educational setting must surely be conservative! Wikipedia lists its most famous dropout as Robin Williams - knowing something of Mr. Williams' political views, I thought this a strong endorsement of the school.

Mr. McPherson also mentioned working with the Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom in the Modern World. Their website defines their mission as follows:

Founded in 1969, the Henry Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom in the Modern World is CMC's oldest research institute and the first of its kind in the world. The Center's mission is to develop close relationships between students and scholars and to engage in the study of political philosophy and freedom as it relates to American Constitutionalism and the American Founding. It seeks to understand, and, if possible, to hearten, the moral, political and intellectual underpinnings of democracy in America.

The Salvatori Center examines timeless truths in an effort to understand our civic condition. Through conferences, lectures and publications, the Center draws attention to the relationship between freedom and virtue, liberty and law, and political philosophy and political practice. Past speakers at Salvatori conferences and lectures include political theorist Harvey C. Mansfield, theologian Richard John Neuhaus, author William F. Buckley, Jr., Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman and other prominent scholars and leaders.

In addition to the events the institute sponsors, each year the Center employs student research assistants and fellows. Four to five students are competitively selected and named as research assistants, while two to three others are competitively selected and named as Harrison Fellows, for which they receive a 2,500 stipend to conduct research on a topic related to the Center's mission.

Obviously, Mr. McPherson was selected at one of the "best of the best" among Claremont McKenna's already elite student body. Equally obviously from listening to him speak, he took full advantage of this opportunity. Interestingly, Chuck DeVore, the darling of the California Tea Party that is fighting to unseat Barbara Boxer, is also a Claremont McKenna alumnus.

After CMC, Mr. McPherson attended the George Mason University School of Law. Quoting from Wikipedia:

Because of its advantageous location and growing reputation, George Mason University School of Law is a selective institution. The law school received 5,092 applications for fall 2008 JD admission and made offers of admission to twenty percent of those applicants. George Mason has 717 students in its J.D., LL.M., and J.M. programs. The median LSAT score among those offered admission to the full-time program for the fall 2009 entering J.D. class was 163 and the median GPA was 3.72. Over 15% of the students in the first year class hold graduate degrees including Ph.D.s.

What Mr. McPherson did not mention was that he was the Managing Editor of GMU's Civil Rights Law Journal and a member of the school's Honor Committee, tasked with upholding George Mason's Honor Code.

It is difficult for me to imagine an educational background better suited to shaping our loose definition of a "Tea Party Candidate." Obviously intelligent and hard-working, this man has been immersed in studies of the founding documents and their relationship to the modern world for, at least, his entire adult life. The depth and breadth of his comprehension of the founding of this country borders on unbelievable, and is exactly the kind of understanding that I believe we need to lead us as we struggle to return to those principles we all hold so dear.

While I would certainly never expect anyone to support a candidate based on my, or anyone else's, opinion, I beg you to please do your homework on this race. Do not repeat my mistake of dismissing Mr. McPherson from consideration because of his relatively late entrance to the race. Visit Mr. McPherson's website and learn about him. Read the statements he has posted since entering the race. I believe you will find them to be completely in line with our positions as proponents of supporting the Constitution. Most importantly, please join the Independence Caucus and listen to the in-depth interviews that were conducted with all four of the candidates in this race before making your final decision. Larry Halloran and his candidate vetting panel invested considerable time and effort into conducting and posting these interviews, and they should be an extemely important part of your overall vetting process. The interviews can be found in discussions titled with each candidate's name in this iCaucus group. Also, if you can give of your time to any degree, please consider contacting Larry about how you can help achieve the iCaucus mission - many more volunteers are urgently needed to help with vetting candidates on the state and local levels.

Many of us have invested an enormous amount of time in this race. I know that a great many of you have announced support for one of the original three candidates. If I did not feel extremely strongly about this race and its potential to impact our country's future, I would not be this outspoken in my support of Mr. McPherson. Making electoral decisions on the basis of reading the candidates' websites and attending a forum or two, or, even worse, on the basis of a personality contest or 30-second TV ads, has brought us to where we are today. We must go deeper than that to ascertain not only our candidates' beliefs, but their ability to support those beliefs with the words of the Founders and the precedent of our nation's founding. While I have only met Mr. McPherson in person once, at last Thursday's Tea Party, for a total of about two minutes, I have absolute confidence in his ability to do just that. The 3rd District is very fortunate to have such an exceptional young man willing to serve our interests. I strongly urge you to give Mr. McPherson a chance to earn your support. Thank you for your time and your tireless work to preserve our great nation.

In liberty...

April Clark