Gidget's predictions -- Pompeo vs. Tiahrt

Pompeo vs. Tiahrt

Everything about this race makes me ill. It's like that game -- would you rather. Would you rather be falling off a 20-story building and snag your eyelid on a nail? Or... would you rather have wooden toothpicks rammed beneath your fingernails while being run over by a bus?

Both of these candidates are completely, 100 percent unpalatable. Thankfully, I do not live in that district. If I did, I would not cast a vote for either of them.

Ironically, I would've voted for Tiahrt in a milisecond, and then he started his campaign. Seriously, his campaign rhetoric goes something like this: I love pork barrel spending. If elected, I promise to make deals that divvy out pork to other districts and in return, I'll keep the bacon coming home to Wichita. In a nutshell, that's his WHOLE campaign. 

Remember all of that Tea Party push to slow (or stop) spending? Remember that push to eliminate crony capitalism? It's as if the last four election cycles never happened and at the Tiahrt campaign office, it's 1996. That isn't the message Tiahrt embraced in his 2010 primary campaign for U.S. Senate. That was a close race, and I personally believe Moran was successful because he was the more fiscally conservative of the two. Did Tiahrt learn nothing in 2010?

Meanwhile, Pompeo has never been a nice human. I knew this going in. (To hear some former campaign staffers talk, Pompeo was an absolute tyrant. Arrogant, rude and unlikeable.) Still, I am surprised by the bullying tactics Pompeo has apparently employed to stifle opposition. For example, Pompeo has been accused of bullying teens -- Roberts' campaign field directors Dalton Glasscock and Moran Anderson. In their sparetime, the two also volunteer for the Tiahrt campaign. According to one blog, Pompeo called Roberts and threatened to revoke his endorsement of Roberts and provide endorsement and funding to Roberts' opponent, Milton Wolf.

The blog, linked above, lists several, several other attempts to bully Tiahrt volunteers and supporters. It's just disgusting and embarrassing for a Kansan (in office, no less) to treat people that way. It's unacceptable. It is an absolute abuse of his position, and if he was a decent human, he would offer an immediate apology. I mean, he would really lay it on thick.

The bullying tactics are even more frightening considering Pompeo supports allowing the NSA to spy on American citizens. Obviously, Pompeo can't be trusted not to use whatever information the NSA garners against his fellow countrymen should they disagree with him or oppose him on any issue. 

That race literally puts my stomach in knots. It's a lose-lose. If Tiahrt wins after campaigning for earmarks and pork, we can just write off the entire country. We can't afford the mentality that spending just for the sake of political expedience is a way to conduct the business of the American people.

And it's intolerable to comprehend the elevation of someone who  like Pompeo, a bully, who may be inclined to use the NSA to blackmail U.S. citizens, to have a seat at the table of American governance.

If there's any way that Pompeo and Tiahrt could both lose on Aug. 5, that'd be awesome. I can't handicap this race. No matter who wins tomorrow, America loses.

Do better next time, Wichita.