Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, and Club for Growth Unite Over Candidate

Red County's Ben Hodge has a good post up today on the primary campaign heating up in the first district of Kansas.

As Hodge notes, Kansas state senator Tim Huelskamp has been endorsed by quite a motley crew of conservatives: Social conservative Mike Huckabee, fiscal conservative powerhouse The Club for Growth, and even libertarian-leaning Ron Paul -- all agree Huelskamp is the best conservative in the race.

... I don't have to tell you that Mike Huckabee, The Club for Growth, and Ron Paul couldn't agree on a pack of gum -- much less a political candidate. So the fact that they are all unanimous in support of Huelskamp is a testament to his impressive record.

Hodge does a good job of summing up the race:

Huelskamp's strongest opponents appear to be State Senator Jim Barnett and US Senator Sam Brownback's former Chief of Staff Rob Wasinger. Senator Barnett is a partially-self-funding physician, and a moderate-turned-conservative-turned-moderate who lost 60-40% to Kathleen Sebelius in the 2006 governor's race.

Wasinger is supported by John McCain and David Kensinger, the current Brownback for Governor campaign manager (technically, it was Kensinger's wife who donated $2300).

To provide further clarity on the McCain endorsement, remember that in the 2008 presidential primaries, Brownback endorsed McCain over Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, even though McCain was the only candidate known to support federal funding of human cloning and ESCR, and even though McCain-Feingold is one of the most offensive, unconstitutional pieces of federal legislation in American history.

While Hodge is correct that Huelskamp is winning the endorsement war, Hodge fails to note that Huelskamp is also way out ahead in terms of fundraising (his donors, by the way, include folks from all 69 counties in the district).

Huelskamp now has more than twice as much Cash on Hand as Wasinger. It has gotten so bad that Wasinger netted a mere $7,000 last quarter (3 months and only $7k to show for it...). One prominent Kansas blog is now predicting Wasinger will soon get out of the race. As they note, he cannot win -- but he could help moderate-to-liberal senator Jim Barnett sneak into the seat.