Gene Garman, a friend of this blog, is running for a seat in the Kansas state senate (District 13). God knows there aren’t enough Democrats in Topeka, and God knows that there are only a few places in Kansas where a Democrat has a chance, and Southeast Kansas is one of them.

If you are a Democrat, or a Tea Party-tired Republican, living in Cherokee or Crawford counties, or in southern Bourbon county (Fort Scott, my old home town), then get out and do something about the right-wing extremism in your state.

The Fort Scott Tribune interviewed Gene and reported:

He said his experience and formal education have impressed on him the responsibility to do unto others as he would have done unto him. “The need to fully fund public education and social services for the poor and needy among us is the right and the American thing to do.

Southeast Kansas and Crawford County are among the most economically depressed counties in the state,” Garman said.

He said the legislature is hampered by a “poverty of imagination, coupled with ideological rigidity,” that keeps Kansas “limping along economically at both the state and local levels of government. Improve the lives of local residents in each community and the entire state benefits,” Garman said.

His bona fides:

He said voters should choose him because he was born and grew up on a farm with an outhouse downstream from a hand-dug water well. “(I) was listening to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys before I learned to read and write in a one-room schoolhouse with kerosene lanterns on the wall, remember Pear Harbor, and am a U.S. Marine Corps Korean Veteran, with a Baylor University education, and, for what its worth, one year of education at Washburn University School of Law, my fifth year on the G.I. Bill.

“I also hold a Master of Divinity degree, from a theological seminary. I am retired from the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters, which has a local office in Frontenac, and the National Association of Letter Carriers, Pittsburg. No campaign contributions accepted,” Garman said.

He had me at “Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.” Who could vote against a guy with such exquisite taste?

I wish I could pull the lever for him, but I’m stuck here in Petticoat Joplin with only a Republican state senator to vote for.

Go, Gene!

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Gene sent this message today, commenting on my post about the Republicans in Missouri, many of whom are committing to the disgraced Todd Akin:

The reference is to Gene’s opponent, Jacob LaTurner, a right-wing conservative who defeated a more moderate Republican in the GOP primary this year (sound familiar?).

Again, get out and vote all you locals. Or don’t complain to me about not having a voice in Topeka.