At a campaign event in Kansas this week, Sen. Pat Roberts, the struggling Republican incumbent, seemed eager to throw some red meat to the GOP base. “We have to change course because our country is heading for national socialism,” the senator said. “That’s not right. It’s changing our culture. It’s changing what we’re all about.”
It seemed quite likely that Roberts, despite more than three decades in Congress, had no idea that national socialism is Nazism. At the same time, the senator also seemed confused by what “socialism” means.
Yesterday, Philip Rucker reported on Roberts’ attempts at a clarification. “I believe that the direction [President Obama] is heading the country is more like a European socialistic state, yes. You can’t tell me anything that he has not tried to nationalize.”
Given that the president hasn’t actually tried to nationalize any American industry, it seems we’re left with a befuddled senator who doesn’t know what “nationalize” means, either.
But that’s not Roberts’ biggest problem. Rather, reports like these from today’s Topeka Capital-Journal are the sort of thing that puts his career in jeopardy.
U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts put a signature to documents associated with the mortgage on a Virginia residence that identify the Fairfax County home as “principal residence” of the three-term incumbent Republican. […]On Wednesday, records surfaced that Roberts signed a Deed of Trust in 1997 and 2003 for property owned in Alexandria, Va., with his wife, Franki, that contained text about a principal residence.The documents, which include a series of covenants, required Roberts to attest the couple within 60 days of executing the document “shall continue to occupy the property as borrower’s principal residence for at least one year after the date of occupancy.”
Wait it gets worse.
From the Washington Post‘s report:
Officially, home is Dodge City, a windy, dusty Old West town. But, as the New York Times reported in February, he does not own a home there…. Roberts lives in Alexandria, Va., where he raised his three children and where his wife, Franki, works as a real estate broker. […]Compounding matters, Roberts’s Preserving America’s Traditions Political Action Committee (PATPAC) is registered in Tampa, according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission. FEC records show that similar PACs for Brownback and Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) are based in Kansas.
And while Roberts’ PAC is also based outside of Kansas, he also lists his home in Virginia as his principal address in his Federal Election Commission filings.
I have a hunch this isn’t what the senator wants to be focusing on just 40 days from Election Day.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."