Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Thompson (Kansas politician)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to Kansas's 4th congressional district special election, 2017. ansh 666 05:09, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

James Thompson (Kansas politician)

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An article on this topic was AfD'd (Articles for deletion/James Thompson (American politician)) with a close of redirect to Kansas's 4th congressional district special election, 2017 a month ago. A new article was created for the subject a few days ago. Totally AGF, the creator did not know that the article had existed and was redirected. Now that the article is fleshed out, it's clear to me that the original redirect was the correct decision, as most of the content of the article is about the election, not the candidate. The candidate fails WP:GNG with not enough coverage about him, the person, and fails WP:NPOL as a failed political candidate for office. The first AfD's closing admin suggested a redirect but in deference to the contributors, I've chosen to open a new AfD instead. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:56, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:06, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Kansas-related deletion discussions. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:06, 25 September 2017 (UTC)


 *  Speedy redirect no reason not to assume good faith on the article creation, but I see no reason to change the decision (no new notability data or reasoning). I was involved in the original discussion but did not take a position either way.  If new information about notability of the subject has been found, that would change things.--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:33, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * The original article, which I hadn't know existed, which apparently was little more than a stub. As of a few days ago I knew very little about Thompson except for his name and his rather extraordinary and notable recent electoral race. However, I was baffled when I looked him up on Wikipedia and there were only confusing redirects. I live a very long way, a three day drive from Wichita, where he practices. So I set to creating an article, not knowing that one had previously existed. I've made 30 or more edits to the article in the last few days, putting in probably 18 hours on it. Mine has background on his family of origin, including homelessness in Oklahoma, and his secondary education. He went into the U.S. Army and became a member of the presidential honor guard which also serves at burials at Arlington National Cemetery, a noteworthy post. He used the G.I. Bill to go to Wichita State where he majored in Political Science, then went on to get a law degree at Washburn University in the state capitol in Topeka. This is highly rated law school. He got married and has a daughter around 11 years old. He has a general practice and specialized  in civil rights law and handled some notable cases. I've gotten the impression he's done considerable, important, pro bono work. He was very involved in organizing the Bernie Sanders campaign in Kansas. He's never run for any office before. When the incumbent, Mike Pompeo, was nominated by Trump to head the CIA, Thompson filed to run for the seat. He had no money, connections or endorsements. However, he did have a very steep challenge. The leading candidates for the post included the former multiple term house minority leader, a Democrat who became the state treasurer and was known for turning his home city, Greensburg, into a "green" community, after a monumental tornado leveled that town. The former multiple term Sedgwick county treasurer, who won two races for the post of Kansas Treasurer, jumped into the race, as did the former nine-term Republican 4th District congressman. The Democratic nominee for the seat in 2012 was also in the race. So a complete political unknown wound up winning the nomination in the district caucus from a much loved establishment candidate with a statewide reputation. On the Republican side the two-time State Treasurer won. A libertarian candidate was also on the ballot. Although this was essentially the first test for a Trump surrogate, the national Democratic party did nothing for Thompson, with the new head of the Democratic National Committee, former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, emphatically stating he would get no help from the DNC. The national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also ignored him, though the party spent over $10 million a week later challenging a seat that was thought possibly winnable in Georgia. The only endorsement Thompson got was the Sanders-affiliated "Our Revolution." The DCC finally wound up getting involved doing a single robocall, the day before the election, and after the absentee ballots had already been cast, when a poll showed Thompson had risen from 30 points behind to within single digits with very little money and a novice, almost entirely volunteer campaign staff. The state party, flush with dough and having vigorously supported the establishment candidate in the caucus, and embarrassed by its adamant refusal to give him anything at all, finally came across with $3,000 a week before the election. This was expected to be a slam dunk for the Republican party, which had won the seat by an average margin of over 30% for the previous 13 years, and had been gerrymandered to be even more conservative, and had taken it from an incumbent in 1994. Trump won the district by 27 points in November, and the "D"s last won it in a high turnout presidential election year, 1992. Special elections in off-years tend to be very low turnout and strongly tend conservative. Estes had a 60% advantage in campaign contributions and SuperPAC money flooding in on top of that, where Thompson had none. Mike Pence and other national figures did robocalls for Estes and Ted Cruz came up from Texas for a fundraiser/rally. The SuperPAC TV ads were what the regional paper called "venomous," mendaciously accusing Thompson of advocating for taxpayer-funded, late term abortions, a complete fabrication. In the only debate Estes he attended, he accused Thompson of supporting Planned Parenthood, which Estes said ("fake news alert")was profiting from fetal tissue, the product of abortions, which was another complete lie. This is in a city where conservatives publicly celebrated the assassination of an abortion almost exactly eight years earlier. So Thompson, with virtually no party support and in the face of immense opposition, reduced the win margin of the Republican candidate by about 80%. I am reminded of the Samuel Johnson quote: (it)... is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." Now if that isn't notable, and I have been an intense student of electoral politics for a very long time, I can't imagine what might be considered so. Thompson filed for the 2018 election for the seat. The country, I expect, will be paying attention. Activist (talk) 22:17, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment Wikipedia does not exist for the advancement of a political cause. The reasons given above seem to me to be supporting deletion.  On "expecting" the country to pay attention, that is essentially WP:CRYSTAL (using a crystal ball to predict the future) and Wikipedia does not speculate.  NOTE:  The editor may be correct... but we don't generally create encyclopedia articles about something that might happen in the future.  That said, I've removed my "speedy" and go with just re-direct.  There is no harm that I can see in having this AFD run its course--the other option would be closing here and going to deletion review and that seems to be more of a problem and less of a solution.  AFD is not infallible, and maybe consensus made a mistake last time... let's find out.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:01, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

"A 2016 study of special elections to the United States House of Representatives found 'that while candidate characteristics affect special election outcomes, presidential approval is predictive of special election outcomes as well. Furthermore, we find that the effect of presidential approval on special election outcomes has increased in magnitude from 1995 to 2014, with the 2002 midterm representing an important juncture in the nationalization of special elections.'"
 * Delete defeated candidates for US congress are not notable. Inordinate coverage due to this being a special election does not change that basic fact.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:08, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete Fails WP:NPOL, all coverage relates to his failed run for office. AusLondonder (talk) 03:41, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Redirect Many of the details in the article can be incorporated into the article about the special election, and the history could be preserved if the subject wins election to a notable office. The community consensus is that candidates for elected office do not possess inherent notability even if the campaign is notable (see WP:BLP1E). --Enos733 (talk) 03:57, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. WP:NPOL is not an absolute ban on articles about not-elected politicians. It's a guideline that advises us that candidates for office are not guaranteed to be notable, but that "such people can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion of 'significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject of the article'". There is significant coverage of Thompson in reliable sources, ergo he passes the WP:GNG. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 07:58, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Much of that is the WP:ROUTINE coverage of a candidate nominated for office in a special election. It's the reason we have NPOL. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:05, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep I became aware of what I presumed was a surprising lack of an article on this candidate because I'm a member of the Kansas project (as well as a number of other states from around the U.S.).  My response to the absence was to create one, and my attention had been drawn to election itself because there were numerous issues involved that made it rapidly move rapidly from relative obscurity, to prominence on the national political radar. Mike Pence and other national Republican figures were involved in a huge late effort to retain this long heavily Republican seat, which suddenly seemed endangered, within the majority. Thompson, an obscure, grossly underfunded and negligibly-supported candidate, had rapidly and spectacularly closed on a well known opponent. Trump weighed in on it just hours after the polls closed. The process and the results were themselves quite remarkable, as I've indicated above. This election reminds one of the special Senate election held in January 2010 which produced a significant upset when Scott Brown won the Senate seat formerly held for 48 years by Ted Kennedy. A similar election in British Columbia led to the founding of the New Democrat third party. Editors might find this By-election article interesting,
 * Activist (talk) 09:33, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * There is not a disagreement about what you write above, but all of this information can be contained in the article about the election itself. With limited exceptions, the community consensus is that losing candidates for federal offices are redirected into the page about the election, or to a list of candidates from a particular party (see WP:POLOUTCOMES). The exceptions usually involve internationalization of the coverage of the candidate (i.e. significant coverage in Canada about a local candidate in the US, sometimes measured in the sheer scope of contemporary coverage) (but internationlization is not always sufficient) or an evaluation that the subject would meet WP:GNG independent of the campaign (and the focus of the article would be about the subject's other activities, rather than politics). I believe this consensus appropriately protects the subjects (candidates) and this wiki project. --Enos733 (talk) 18:08, 26 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep - Seems to have significant coverage in both national and international outlets. I just removed the NPOV statements in the article, so I see no reason to delete it, as it is well-sourced. RileyBugz 会話 投稿記録  21:01, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
 * KEEP: This man will be running for office next year and is already declared and fund raising. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:e000:cd48:ba00:ece1:52bf:2bef:edff (talk) 21:52, 29 September 2017
 * There is no Wikipedia policy cited in this vote so it can be disregarded. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:27, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Could be (theoretically) if there is significant coverage to pass WP:GNG... but I cannot find any. Therefore, it's just a prediction and falls under WP:CRYSTAL (crystal ball of the future) and as stated above, that's not a reason to keep an article.--Paul McDonald (talk) 01:24, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Being an as yet unelected candidate in a future election does not get a person a Wikipedia article in and of itself. A person has to win the election and thereby hold office, not just run, to get an article for being involved in an election in and of itself — otherwise, you have to either show that he already passed a Wikipedia inclusion criterion for some other reason independent of the candidacy, or that his candidacy garnered so much media coverage (e.g. Christine O'Donnell, whose coverage went international) that his candidacy was significantly more notable than most other candidacies. Bearcat (talk) 17:47, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Redirect to the election article. Candidates do not get Wikipedia articles just for being candidates per se — outside of very rare special cases like the international media firestorm that ate Christine O'Donnell, a person has to win the election, not just run in it, before "was an election candidate" constitutes a valid notability claim in and of itself. But isn't referenced to anything like enough coverage about him to make his candidacy more notable than most other non-winning candidacies — it's referenced to the WP:ROUTINE type and volume of election coverage that's simply expected to always exist in any election. To make a candidate notable just for the fact of being a candidate, the candidacy coverage has to explode far outside of the norm, the way O'Donnell's did — raw tables of election results and glancing namechecks of his existence in routine coverage of the race itself, which is what nearly all of the sources here are, are not enough. Bearcat (talk) 17:54, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
 * redirect to relevant election article, per policy.  Coverage is not significant enough and subject does not meet NPOLITICIAN. Wikipedia is not a soapbox or a stump for political hopefuls to publicize their campaigns.Dlohcierekim (talk) 02:27, 3 October 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.