Kris Kobach is running for governor of Kansas in the Kansas primary tomorrow.  He is, quite simply, a man whose time has come.  That's because he's the hands-down expert in these United States on illegal immigration and voter fraud and has been addressing these issues for lo, these many years.  Thus, it would hard to exaggerate the level of support he enjoys here in Kansas. 

We Kansans like that.  We like that Kris calls out illegal immigration and does it unequivocally.  We're really proud that our secretary of state has been, Churchill-fashion, sounding the alarm over the erosion of U.S. sovereignty for years and years.  Not being the hayseed clodpates the MSM think us – and I know exactly what they think, because in a previous incarnation, I was a New Yorker, and I thought it too! – we're all well aware that the endless invasion of illegals flooding into our beloved country is a disaster of Homeric proportions.

It may be hard for the sensibilities of libs on either coast to absorb, but here, we don't think it "diverse" to have previously eradicated diseases (whooping cough, pertussis) breaking out in full fury in our public schools!  We don't "celebrate" the leprosy clinics in all our major cities (you can be excused for not knowing that, but Google "Hansen's disease," only not at mealtime).  And, most of all, we are sick to death – and I mean projectile-vomiting-explosive-diarrhea-fulminating-nausea sick to death – of being the emergency room, the welfare state, and the public school to the world, all while hearing our magnificent country excoriated as the cause of every ill and injustice in the world by the very beggars at our door.  The United States of America, the most generous nation on Earth! 

And secretary of state Kris Kobach?  He gets that.  More to the point, he got it, and he got it ahead of everybody else!

I first met the secretary some 12 years ago, when – along with hundreds of other Kansans – our paths converged in the Kansas Legislature.  We the People were there to support yet another anti-illegal alien bill (h/t Sen. Lance Kinzer).  Kris was there to provide expert testimony as to why E-Verify is a good thing since it keeps illegals from stealing our jobs.  He also was there to point out that, if you're a Kansas state senator, preferring illegals to your own citizen constituents is probably a bad thing.

You would have thought such would be self-evident.  You would have been wrong.

As testimony began, I could not believe my eyes. I watched Kris explain, over and over again, that, instead of deportation, Kansas could turn off the spigot of "benefits" to illegals, causing them to "self-deport."  A farmer sitting next to me nudged me and "explained," "Too many pigs for the teats!"  And I watched Kris explain that, No, Virginia, instituting E-Verify to protect citizens' businesses and jobs is not the equivalent of committing serial murder.  And on, and on, and on...

But the real marvel, and what impressed me most, was Kris's unfailing self-control.  This was evident because (even while beset by maddeningly deranged questions like "If we don't give away all our jobs and social services to illegals, doesn't that make us all big fat racist sexist Islamophobic bigots?") he resisted the urge to vault over the Senate railing (at six feet, three inches, he could have cleared it easily) to grab any of those interrogators by the throat!

 I was sold.

Another thing, and it matters: Like many Kansans, I often refer to our secretary of state as "Kris."  That stands in contrast to his high office, his distinguished background (Oxford University, Harvard, Yale, a W.H. appointment while yet in his 30s, etc.), and his expertise (he is the ultimate authority on constitutional state sovereignty and is consulted by every state and municipality seeking to draft such laws).  But that familiarity comes naturally to his constituents because he has been out there among us for so many years, always working, working.  We see him.  He's here.  Then there's his Sunday evening radio show, which he had for some time; it was replete with utterly fascinating topics and great guests, and we'd all call in, and there was laughter amid the ideological debate.  We knew him more than the regular pol is known.  He wanted us to, which is why it was always "Kris."

Lest I be accused of writing a mere puff piece for this gentleman whom I so avidly support and admire, let me now reveal his drawbacks.  They are, I tremble to admit, as several as they are grave.

The canny reader will by now have divined that the secretary is a man.  This in itself is reprehensible, but, even worse, he is a white man!  And, most damning of all, his very name fixes him on the Index of Extreme European-ness; I mean, "Kris Kobach" is hardly an aboriginal name, is it?

Furthermore, he has the chutzpah to be married, and not to a "same-sex partner," but to a woman, a beautiful woman, in fact.  This doubtless establishes another crime of which he is guilty – call it "lookism" or something.  

Despite such egregious faults, I'm far from giving up on him.  His crimes, while heinous, are susceptible to amelioration.  Where the man thing is concerned, he could call CNN and entertain some (highly publicized) doubts as to his sexual orientation.  The white thing too could be addressed.  Immediately after opening up to Chris Cuomo on the fluidity of gender, the secretary could confess that merely walking around white is enough to make him want to throw himself into oncoming traffic, so much guilt does it confer!  Of course, he need not actually throw himself into the (aforesaid) traffic.  It's the feeling that matters.

And yet, his man-ness, white-ness, European-ness, and lookism notwithstanding, I'll bet the rent that we Kansans are going to elect Kris Kobach as our next governor.  Because this stuff really isn't funny anymore, and Kris Kobach knows that.  And he has known it – and said it out loud-- for a long, long time!

Thanks to Stu Tarlowe for his help with this.

Kathy Brown is an attorney and a nurse, and in addition currently teaches American history at a Catholic school.  She's a native of NYC who now makes her home in the American Heartland.

Caricature by Donkey Hotey, via Flickr.