Via TalkingPointsMemo:
Kobach is part of the State Objections Board along with Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer, all Republicans. The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that on Thursday the board agreed to consider whether to take Obama off the ballot because they said they lacked sufficient evidence about his birth certificate.
“I don’t think it’s a frivolous objection,” Kobach said, according to the Capital-Journal. “I do think the factual record could be supplemented.”
The board is looking at a complaint filed by Joe Montgomery, of Manhattan, Kan., who claimed the Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen and so is ineligible to be president. The man appears to be part of a group of conspiracy theorists known as “birthers,” who deny Obama’s birth certificate is real.
Since the birther conspiracists can't seem to make up their minds about whether they think Barack Obama was born in Kenya or Hawaii, it would appear that they've simply decided to play both sides of that coin to pander to the low-information, fearful and frankly stupid base. It's telling to me that Romney has to have his informal "advisors" play the birther card to keep that base solid for November. That's how weak he is.
Rep. Tim Huelskamp pushed back on Kobach today, saying that Mr. Obama will be on the ballot regardless of the board's "review." It seems that birther views aren't entirely popular in Kansas since Huelskamp was able to win his primary by defeating a birther type earlier this year.
The extreme right of the Republican party isn't driven by any love for Mitt Romney. They think Romney isn't conservative enough and will sell them out. Kobach understands this, and with Romney sinking lower in the polls with every day that passes, they're just working as hard as they can to consolidate the haters into one unified lump in order to try and get him elected.
In other words, Kobach is just using the race card as trump to pick up his own suit. It's pathetic, but not surprising.
Update: Well, I guess Kansas isn't completely insane. Yet. Seems the guy who submitted the complaint got so much grief for it that he withdrew it. I'm sure Kobach was disappointed.
