Midterm elections are coming up soon. Too soon. I need to educate myself about the Democratic challengers that are out there so that I can do whatever is possible to help. And what better place to start than Kansas' 1st Congressional District, home to perhaps the House Republicans' worst of the worst, Representative Tim Huelskamp.

I don't think Huelskamp is the dumbest in the Republican Caucus (Louie Gohmert?), or the silliest (Steve Stockman?), or the craziest (Michele Bachmann? Steve King?), although he is at least competitive on all fronts. What gets me about Huelskamp is his utter contempt for the gravity of his office, for the President and for any American who is not part of his extremist Christian fringe or his corporate clientele. I can think of no sitting member of Congress who it would more deeply satisfy me to see defeated.

You can get a sense of what a nasty piece of work Huelskamp is by browsing his Twitter feed. Here's a taste:



The Kansas 1st is a large rural district considered to be among America's most conservative and perhaps this schtick plays well there with the Tea Party, but I have to wonder. This is a real creep occupying a seat previously held by Bob Dole and Pat Roberts, both normal human beings.

Huelskamp play to the religious conservatives by appealing to their strong distaste for abortion and gay marriage. In office, he focuses primarily on weaken federal regulations on behalf of his corporate backers. In 2012, Think Progress correlated campaign donations from Koch Industries with representative scores on Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity's scorecard. Huelskamp was one of 40 members who received a 100% score from AFP.

Huelskamp recently made the news when the Washington Post's Fact Checker Glenn Kessler awarded him "Four Pinocchios" for claiming "there are more people uninsured today in Kansas than there were before the president's health-care plan went into effect".

Huelskamp has been agitating to replace Speaker Boehner so I'm sure there's no love lost there. Boehner would probably be tickled to see him go. So perhaps there's hope.

Enter Jim Sherow.

Jim is a Professor of History on the faculty of Kansas State University with a specialty in the agricultural history of Western Kansas. He has served as City Commission member/Mayor of Manhattan, Kansas, a city with a council-manager system. His wife, Bonnie, is also on the Kansas State history faculty, and the two run a bed and breakfast together.

Back in January, Jim introduced himself in a guest post on the blog "Down With Tyranny": Why The Farm Bill Is Crucial For Kansas-- And For The Rest Of America. In the post, Jim called out Huelskamp for holding the Farm Bill hostage for larger cuts to the SNAP program. He spoke about the importance of food aid:

In addition to making sure farms are able to stay afloat, the farm bill is also supposed to provide nutritional support for Americans who need it the most. The food stamp program (aka SNAP, Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) became part of the farm bill during President Eisenhower's administration when representatives from farming districts recognized that they needed the political support from urban areas if they were to have any chance of using taxpayer dollars to subsidize farming. Food stamps aid many more urban folks than rural and go primarily to children, the disabled, and seniors. The program hardly results in dependencyas the average adult recipient is employed and relies on food stamps for only about ten months.

And finally, Congress is ignoring that the pumping of the Ogallala Aquifer cannot be indefinitely sustained. Hydrologists know, and as Mr. Huelskamp is well aware, that by 2070 the aquifer in western Kansas will no longer yield its water. This aquifer was produced by melting glaciers tens of thousands of years ago, and receives hardly any recharge. So tapping this source is akin to mining and as we have seen in many areas of the U.S. such as Appalachia, mining economics are very fragile.

And about the importance of protecting the Ogallala Aquifer:He's sounding like good people to me. Here's a video Jim posted on his nascent campaign website talking about "No Labels", which I'm not keen on but may play better with his conservative district.

The primary election isn't held until the first Tuesday in August in Kansas so it is early. But Sherow is sounding pretty good to me weighed against the current occupant of this seat. Hopefully we'll get to know Jim Sherow better in coming weeks.