Politics is a vocation. Some are naturally good at it, others are not, and others still become good at it with practice and experience.

But there’s another group of political practitioners whom I’ve long found fascinating: those who pursue a career in electoral politics and never really learn the necessary skills, largely because they never have to. These are officials who, for example, are conservative Republicans in conservative Republican areas, who fail to learn the art of the job because it is rarely necessary for them to cultivate any real talent to succeed. That is, until time catches up with them.

Take Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas, for example, who has never demonstrated any notable political skills and who apparently told his campaign staff that he wanted to end his 2026 re-election campaign with a response to reporting about how he treated medical patients who couldn’t afford their medical bills.

His aides reportedly told the senator that was a bad idea, at which point the GOP lawmaker apparently ignored them. The New York Times reported: The senator — without the knowledge of at least some top aides — arranged for his own film crew to record and package just such an ad.

Wearing a red button-down shirt in front of a bucolic background, Mr. Marshall made the case in a 60-second ad that he had often provided free care.

In the straight-to-camera message, the struggling incumbent blamed the mess on a collection agency that he said his former medical practice “occasionally” used.

While it’s not entirely clear whether this last-minute ad will reach broadcast stations — the Times’ report added that his campaign leaders “moved to block the release of the ad,” at which point the senator “began sending it directly to people outside the campaign” — Marshall nevertheless brought fresh attention to one of his biggest vulnerabilities as part of his closing message.

There’s no shortage of reasons why polls show Marshall struggling. From questions about his residency to an unpaid bakery bill, from his ongoing campaign finance controversy to the strength of the Rev. Adam Hamilton’s Democratic candidacy, the incumbent senator and his thin record are at the center of a toss-up race that few would have predicted.

But I’ve long argued that the turning point in the Kansas race came in early September, when Kansans learned that Marshall garnished paychecks and pushed arrest warrants when his patients couldn’t afford their medical bills during his time as a physician in private practice. There’s ample evidence to suggest that local voters heard the story and considered it important.

This, as much as anything else, stuck. It was around that point when some polls started showing Hamilton taking a lead, especially after the Democratic campaign seized on the issue in its advertising.

Late last week, the story managed to get a little worse when a former patient filed a class-action lawsuit against Marshall, focused specifically on the high interest rates he charged.

A senator with keener political skills might have responded effectively to the controversy and navigated the statewide race in a way that would not have damaged his candidacy. Marshall, however, does not have — and seems never to have even tried to develop — those skills.

The result is an ad that the Kansan’s campaign team was right to try to stop.