Former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker (R-KS) refused to film a campaign TV ad on behalf of vulnerable incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), the Kansas City Star reported Tuesday.
Kassebaum Baker represented Kansas in the Senate from 1978 to 1997 and was succeeded by Roberts, who had been a congressman. Her father Alf Landon was governor of Kansas and the Republican nominee against FDR in 1936.
“There’s just disappointment around the state,” she told the Star of Roberts. “They feel they don’t know him now.”
Roberts is facing an unexpectedly robust challenge from independent candidate Greg Orman, who currently leads the incumbent by 1 point in TPM’s PollTracker average. A group of moderate Kansas Republicans also endorsed Orman in the race.
Kassebaum Baker had previously criticized Roberts in a Washington Post profile of Roberts last week. She singled out Roberts’ vote in 2012 against a United Nations treaty that would have banned discrimination against people with disabilities. Another former Kansas Republican senator, Bob Dole, who is himself disabled, had advocated for the treaty.
“People thought, ‘Gosh, why couldn’t he have done that for Bob?’ ” she said. “That just triggered an emotional disappointment with Pat. I think that carried on and has not been changed.”
