TheChat: Peter Kinder weighs in on bathrooms

We’re gearing up for national political conventions. Dave Helling and I hit Cleveland on Sunday.

▪ “That's not a sound rule. I want to keep women, and especially young girls, adolescent girls, protected from grown men or adolescent young men in their restrooms.” — Peter Kinder, a Republican candidate for Missouri governor, expressing his opposition to President Barack Obama’s directive to public schools that allows transgender students to use whatever bathroom matches their gender identities, not sex at birth.

All four GOP gubernatorial contenders were critical of the rule. (link courtesy of johncombest.com).

▪ “Republicans understand that you can succeed in a negotiation only if you are willing to walk away from it.” — the draft of a proposed GOP platform on trade.

The draft also insists that America needs better trade agreements that put the nation first. Donald Trump has signaled that he’s largely taking a hands off approach to the platform, which may be a wise move politically. Most Americans pay little attention to it anyway. Still, this trade plank sounds positively Trump-esque.

▪ “It will get even nastier.” — Missouri state Rep. Chuck Basye, a Rocheport Republican, on the GOP primary race for attorney general between Josh Hawley and Kurt Schaefer.

If that’s the case, bar the door because this race already has been particularly negative. In fact, it ranks as the nastiest in the state right now.

▪ “A circus.” — an attorney criticizing the process by which a state board enacted a rule to allow some 18,000 Kansans who have not provided proof of citizenship to vote in federal races.

The rule was adopted at the last minute the day before advance voting begins in a cramped conference room. Critics said the issue needed a fuller hearing.