"Kansas" Sen. Pat Roberts
You may recall that when conservative columnist Byron York tried to find out how many days GOP Sen. Pat Roberts had spent in Kansas lately, the campaign initially told him they'd provide the data
but then reneged. This was a foolish move, because York managed to get his hands on the stats anyway (via an anonymous source), so Roberts gave up the opportunity to control the release of information. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered anyway, though, since the numbers
do not look good for the senator:
Roberts was in Kansas for all or part of 65 days in 2012. The Senate was in session in Washington for 149 days, although that figure includes a number of days when there were so-called pro forma sessions when no business was done. But even counting all the pro forma days as work days, that leaves 151 days in 2012 when the Senate was not meeting and Roberts was not in Kansas, versus the 65 days Roberts was in his home state.
Including the
pro forma days is very generous to Roberts, but even with those counted, he only spent 30 percent of his "free" time in his home state. And Roberts doesn't dispute the figures. Rather, he told York: "I don't measure my service in days. I try to measure it in results." The problem there is the word "I"—it doesn't matter what Roberts thinks. It matters what Republican primary voters think. Roberts may yet survive because his tea partying opponent, physician Milton Wolf, revealed himself as a
ghoulish jackass, but all the accomplishments in the world don't matter if the folks voting for you think you're out of touch.