‘Republican socialist,’ Kansas Ed. Board member left out of Kansas GOP Senate debate
When Kansas Republicans gather Saturday in Olathe to hear GOP candidates for U.S. Senate debate, two candidates won’t be included on the stage.
Brian Matlock, a self-described “Republican socialist” running a longshot campaign for the GOP nomination, said the Kansas Republican Party has excluded him from a Feb. 1 debate at the party’s annual convention at the Embassy Suites in Olathe.
Matlock, 35, said he’s left messages for party officials and reached out to the party on Facebook asking to be added to the debate.
“It shows they saw the message. They just didn’t respond. At this point you sort of have to assume they’re choosing not to include me because I’m an outsider and a socialist, the s-word,” said Matlock, who supports the Medicare For All legislation crafted by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Matlock, a resident of Kansas City, Kansas, registered in November with the Kansas Secretary of State’s Office as a candidate for the Republican primary in the race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Pat Roberts.
Shannon Golden, the executive director of the Kansas Republican Party, said Matlock isn’t the only candidate being left off the debate stage. Kansas Board of Education member Steve Roberts also won’t participate in the debate under rules the party has set for the event.
Golden said the party made a decision to limit the debate to the four candidates polling highest in the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s October internal poll: former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, U.S. Rep. Roger Marshall, Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle and former Johnson County Commissioner Dave Lindstrom.
“When we were looking at who’s going to be on the debate stage we wanted the candidates who are actually polling,” Golden said.
The poll was conducted before either Matlock or Roberts, a Johnson County resident who has served on the Kansas Board of Education since 2013, announced their candidacies.
Roberts, who registered with the Kansas Secretary of State’s Office in November, said he planned to reach out to Kansas Republican Chairman Mike Kuckelman about his exclusion from the debate.
“I’m on the ballot,” Roberts said. “I’m not looking to steal anybody’s thunder and take away from our front tier candidates, but I do have issues to raise.”
Roberts, 61, said he wants schools to stop tracking students’ educational performance by race and to end the federally-funded free and reduced lunch program.
He contended that race and poverty have been used as excuses for poor academic performance. He also said that schools should provide a free lunch to all students regardless of socioeconomic status out of their existing budgets without additional federal funding.
“My contention is there’s nothing wrong with giving a little girl a subsidized lunch if her parents are affluent because her parents are paying taxes,” he said.
Roberts is confident he’ll be added to the debate stage before Saturday, noting his personal relationship with Kuckelman, whose son he tutored in math.
Golden said the party signed memorandums of understanding with the four candidates set to participate in the 60-minute debate and the new candidates can’t be added under that agreement.
Golden said she has not spoken to Matlock and the first message she saw from his campaign came Wednesday, several weeks after the debate lineup was set. She also questioned Matlock’s ties to the party.
“He’s not even a registered Republican. When he filed he was not a registered Republican, so obviously that was kind of a consideration,” she said, noting that Kansas law doesn’t require candidates to be registered members of a party to seek its nomination.
Asked about his decision to run as a Republican despite his progressive platform, Matlock noted his upbringing in a Republican and devout Christian household in rural Idaho.
“A lot of the values that led to me becoming a socialist came from my parents and my community,” said Matlock, a PhD candidate in economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Matlock moved to the Kansas City area 11 years ago to attend the Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City.
He did not end up becoming a minister, but he ended up working with the homeless community in Kansas City, Kansas, and worked as a case worker at the Wyandot Center for Community Behavioral Health Care before pursuing a PhD in economics.
This month he filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission, a requirement for candidates who have raised or expended at least $5,000 toward a federal campaign.
He said his wife and he have bought tickets for the Kansas Republican convention and he will be promoting his candidacy at the convention even if he’s not on the debate stage.
His platform includes a federally-funded job guarantee program, which would be administered at the local level, an idea he said will help rural communities.
The debate with the four other Senate candidates will be moderated by KCMO Talk Radio host Pete Mundo. It will cover immigration, trade, President Donald Trump’s impeachment, the economy and taxes, Golden said.
This story was originally published January 30, 2020 at 12:00 PM.
