CLEARLY Demonstrating what they don’t know about Kansas politics, some marketing geniuses somewhere appear to have decided that I’m the perfect person to survey on an almost daily basis about who should step into the void created by Jake LaTurner’s retreat and become the latest person to want to represent our overly gerrymandered district in Congress.

The first survey showed up in my text messages probably before LaTurner had managed to tell his relatives he was not seeking re-election. Subsequent surveys continually have whittled the list of potential candidates. The latest lists only two declared candidates and one other.

What amazed me is how much of each survey is spent asking opinions about former president Donald Trump, as if he somehow were running for LaTurner’s seat instead of for his old chair in the Oval Office.

Pollsters may not be bright enough to realize it, but some people actually like to vote for candidates on their own merit, not on whether they support or oppose a man who may be the most controversial presidential candidate in U.S. history. He might think otherwise, but the world doesn’t revolve around Donald Trump.

— ERIC MEYER