Serving Kansas in the House of Representatives from 1983-1995, Slattery made a name for himself as a budget hawk- something government desperately needs in this day and age, and since he left Congress in '95 he's not part of the current problem, but he can still start on day one actively representing Kansas. On top of that, he's smart, he's charismatic, and he's right on all of the issues that are important to Kansans.

Now, I mention he's "right on the issues" because that's something Kansas just doesn't have in our current US Senator. Of course you should all expect that I don't agree with Sen. Roberts- we have significantly difference philosophies when it comes to what a responsible government should do with its power, but Pat Roberts is far more radical, far more reactionary, and far worse for Kansas than I ever imagined.

In 2007 (yes, I didn't have to dig, folks), he voted against increasing the minimum wage, voted against sending money to the Gulf Coast to aide in recovery post-Hurricane Katrina, and against $1.77 billion in new dollars for the Department of Veterans Affairs that would have been used to correct the horrible conditions we saw in early 2007 at Walter Reed Army Hospital.

Pat Roberts was one of only 9 US Senators to vote against Sen. John McCain's amendment in the Senate to ban the use of torture on people being held by the United States. Roberts voted to allow- to allow- torture.

Speaking of another of Sen. John McCain's amendments, this one Pat voted for: The one that allowed the United States Air Force to choose Airbus over Boeing to make our next generation tankers. Yes, that's right, Senator Pat Roberts voted to let our defense contracts be outsourced.

Pat Roberts voted over, and over and over again (three times I could find) against reinstating "pay-as-you-go" requirements on the US Senate. "Pay-go" rules would mean anytime spending increases, the government has to pay for it, either by taking money from another program or increasing taxes. It would be unfair, of course to call Roberts a tax and spender- he's just a spender, and his fiscally irresponsible votes have exploded the deficit.

On that same note, he voted correctly to prevent the Alternative Minimum tax from affecting thousands of middle class Kansans like you and me, but he didn't pay for it, he just spiked it off into the debt, letting future generations foot the bill.

More? He voted for the Farm Bill, which was good for Kansas, but he voted against two amendments, one that would have limited subsidy payments only to people who actually farm (wow, who would have thought...) and the other that would have prevented people who make more than $750,000 a year from receiving government subsidies. Both amendments would have made sure the help the Farm Bill provides went to family and small-scale farmers, not the huge corporate farms that have so fundamentally changed life in the plains. Pat Roberts thought it was more important those mega-farms got their share, rather than our family farms.

Roberts voted for No Child Left Behind, which is great in theory, but punishes the schools that need the help the most. He voted against making it cheaper to go to college, he voted against money for research into lifesaving cures- twice- and he voted to make it harder for workers to come together to bargain for better wages and benefits.

I, unfortunately for all of us Kansans, could go on and on. Via Project Vote Smart we see our US Senator gets a D+ from the conservative National Taxpayers Union for being fiscally irresponsible, he gets an F form the National Education Association, an F from the national PTA, and an F from the national School Board Association and let me tell you, folks, when you have the teachers, the parents, and the school boards all in agreement, you've got something very special.

And don't even get me started on his "memory pills." Oh, why not- I'll let Arianna Huffington do it for me:

Today's Meet the Press featured an older male Senator hawking a bottle of pills. And no, these weren't little blue pills, and no, it wasn't Senator Bob Dole. It was another senator from Kansas, Sen. Pat Roberts, who, I kid you not, tried to make a point about the NSA scandal to his fellow panelists -- former Senator Tom Daschle, Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) -- by pulling out a bottle of pills and admonishing the group that "everybody ought to take a memory pill."

And though it was a bizarre moment -- Daschle and the others had the kind of embarrassed smile you get when your crazy old uncle starts yelling at FDR at the dinner table...

You want to see for yourself, you say? Well...you asked for it:

Pat Roberts tries awfully hard to present himself as a champion for average folks back at home, but this man has been gone for so long he doesn't remember what it's like to be from Kansas anymore. He's lived full time in DC since the before man walked on the Moon, and it shows. He's out of touch, a lackey for the Bush Administration, and the people of Kansas deserve better.

And we'll get better, because, at very least, Jim Slattery doesn't take "memory pills."