Kansas Attorney General Schmidt, Florida Governor DeSantis speak in Olathe
Article - 9 minute read
Doors opened at noon Sunday, September 18 for the Unite and Win Rally presented by Turning Point Action. The free, two-hour event started at 1:30 p.m. and brought current Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt (R), who is running for Kansas Governor, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) together to speak to a packed room of over a thousand supporters.
The event took place at Embassy Suites in Olathe where around a hundred Governor Laura Kelly (D) supporters protested outside against Schmidt and DeSantis.
“The racist bigots are trying to take over America,” protestor Tom Ervin said. “We put them down once in the first Civil War, so, they’re coming back with Trump and all these… racists and bigots we have. [Ron DeSantis] is one of the top bigots.”
It is important to note that during DeSantis’ speech, he made mention his belief in judging people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Also, as a woman passed by Ervin said to her, “You’re asleep, too.” The woman responded with, “You’re loved.” Ervin replied, “You’re an idiot. You’re a traitor like Trump…. If you’re for Trump, then you’re a traitor…. Take your hate back to Florida or wherever you came from.”
Ervin held a sign that said, “Take your hate back to Florida,” on one side, the other side saying, “We’re woke, you’re asleep.”
“DeSantis is a big ‘woke’ guy,” Ervin said. “We can’t have ‘woke’ in Florida. ‘Woke’ is what really happened in this country. We don’t want to know what really happened, we just want to be asleep. They’re very good at that—being asleep.”
At the doors where people were entering to the event, Johnson County Commissioner Candidate Charlotte O’Hara was greeting people and passing out brochures.
“This is an incredible event,” O’Hara said. “We need to get our conservatives in office. We need a clean sweep. I’m running for Johnson County Chair, so I’m down ticket, and it’s actually a nonpartisan position that I am absolutely, on all my brochures and on my website—everywhere, I am definitively declaring I am a Republican because people need to know who they’re voting for. So, I am the conservative, and I value your money in your pocket instead of in the pocket of the government.”
The event started with conservative radio talk show host for KNSS John Whitmer leading the afternoon in prayer.
Schmidt took stage after Whitmer and spoke about how he has fought big government overreach, including vaccine mandates, stopping attempts to implement the Great New Deal by regulation, and stopping Governor Kelly’s attempts to punish people of faith for gathering in worship.
“I’ve had the honor of standing three times before the Supreme Court of the United States on your behalf, and we won every time,” Schmidt said. “We’ve put violent criminals behind bars, we’ve busted big drug companies for peddling addiction for profit by pushing opioids on our friends and neighbors, we have returned more than one million dollars to Kansas consumers and taxpayers, we have stood up time and again for older Kansans, the vulnerable, and others who need our protection. We know how to fight and win, and we are going to win in November.”
In his speech, Kansas Governor Candidate Schmidt took shots at President Biden for declaring MAGA Republicans as threats to the country as well as at Kansas Governor Kelly for standing silent and allowing President Biden to get away with the federal government overreach. He spoke about how Governor Kelly won’t stand up against Biden, pointing out the southern border crisis.
“Republican Governors have been pleading for help with the Biden border crisis for more than a year, and Laura Kelly has mocked those requests, calling them, ‘political games,’” Attorney General Schmidt said. “Imagine thinking that the security situation at our southern boarder preventing drug cartels and deadly fentanyl from pouring into our communities is a ‘political game.’ Laura Kelly won’t stand up to Biden’s terrible immigration policies that are allowing drugs to flood across our boarder and kill our kids, but I have, and I will.”
He brought up Governor DeSantis’ political stunt where he sent nearly 50 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard and thanked the Florida Governor for joining him. He then had an invitation for President Biden.
“Mr. President, I’d like to invite you to come to Kansas and campaign for your loyal supporter, Laura Kelly…. I will stand side-by-side with Ron DeSantis if Laura will stand side-by-side with Joe Biden…. After all, the two of them do agree about pretty much everything.”
Attorney General Schmidt pointed out that over the past four years, Kansas spending is up six billion dollars (35 percent), an increase of more than $2,000 a year that “every man, woman, and child is shouldering to pay for new government spending.”
“In one term as governor, Laura Kelly has grown state spending as much as her four predecessors combined, and it took them fourteen years,” Schmidt said. “What do Kansas families have to show for it? More than 21,000 fewer Kansans are working in our state today than they did four years ago. Daily life is less affordable. So many families are falling further behind every month as Joe Biden and Laura Kelly’s big government inflation takes more and more of your wages. The broken foster care system is still not fixed. Neither is the broken unemployment benefit system despite all-time record spending on our public schools. Our kid’s academic achievement is behind because spending more doesn’t help when you lock the kids out of the classroom.”
Attorney General Schmidt spoke further about Governor Laura Kelly’s harm to kids both in education and on mental health issues, referring to the current Kansas governor as “Lockdown Laura,” and making a promise to Kansas parents.
“Parents must be heard,” Attorney General Schmidt said. “They must know that our leaders will listen to them. My opponent and those who bankroll her campaigns believe they’re in charge of our schools and our kids, but they’re not. Parents are…. Parents and students in Kansas should not have to suffer. That’s why I will sign into law a Parent’s Bill of Rights as soon as I become governor.”
He pointed out that Governor Kelly vetoed a Parent’s Bill of Rights, and that he will sign the Bill in his first session.
When Governor DeSantis took stage, he was met with thunderous applause as white hats were thrown out into the crowd. He spoke on what it means to be a leader and the importance of focusing on the interests of your own people over big government and corporate media and how other states would start mimicking Florida’s policies six months to a year after Florida first implemented them.
“I’m proud to say particularly that when President Biden took office, Florida really stood as the backstop for freedom,” Governor DeSantis said. “We prevented a lot of erroneous policies from gaining traction at all. For example, we were one of the first states to ban vaccine passports.”
Governor DeSantis explained his reasons as to why government should have the power to tell private businesses they can’t discriminate against certain people including his care for the individual participating in society trumping the freedom of a corporation marginalizing individuals and his understanding of Florida being a tourism state where people want to go, especially during the pandemic.
Governor DeSantis further spoke on the successes of Florida and his policies over the failures and policies of left-leaning politicians in states like New York, California, and Illinois. He pointed out that the first chance politicians got, they would vacation in Florida while their own states were locked up.
“If people really got fed up and frustrated with what was going on with their state or their municipality, Florida was the first place people thought to escape to,” Governor DeSantis said. “We served as a refuge of sanity in a world that had gone mad.”
Regarding Attorney General Schmidt’s idea that retirement should be tax free, Governor DeSantis said it was “smart.” He explained people retire and go to affordable states, including people from a lot of blue states. However, Governor DeSantis explained that when he took office nearly four years ago there were almost 300,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans in Florida and never had more Republicans than Democrats. However, today, Florida has about 276,000 more registered Republicans. He said that people respond to leadership and that having Laura Kelly as governor is like having Biden as governor.
Other key issues that DeSantis spoke on included being against ‘woke’ teachings in schools, especially Critical Race Theory (CRT) and protecting women and girls from the trans ideologies.
After the rally, it was found that all the protestors were gone and the people who attended the event were fired up.
“It was just phenomenal,” attendee Shannan Simpson said. “We just need more governors and more government to stand up for our freedom and that is exactly what DeSantis is doing. So, it was great to hear from him.”
“[I’m] very fired up on both [Schmidt and DeSantis],” attendee Tom Gaume said. “You hear a lot of lies from corporate media…. I’m going to vote for both of them for sure. I think I was going to before, but Lockdown Laura, she’s bad news for the country and is lockstep with Biden and our country has got to get turned around and it’s going to take somebody like DeSantis to do it.”
It is interesting to note that while the event was going on inside Embassy Suites, outside, someone or some group was putting papers on the vehicles in the parking lot. The paper states at the top, “WHILE DESANTIS WORKS TO SECURE OUR BORDER, DEREK SCHMIDT & LAURA KELLY INCENTIVIZE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION!!!”
The paper refers to substitute for SB 458, voted on in March 2008. Both Schmidt and Kelly voted against four highlighted amendments including:
An amendment repealing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants
Amendment barring agencies from prohibiting officers from inquiring about immigration status
The claims of the paper were checked and are all true, making Attorney General Schmidt’s words regarding immigration something to keep in check, especially if he becomes the next Kansas Governor. Whether the next governor is Schmidt or Kelly, paid subscribers to the Kansas Constitutional will be able to follow our governor through our ‘From the State’ pieces where we give word-for-word the press releases provided by the Kansas state government, sometimes with hot takes calling the governor out on certain issues.