OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — The image some conservatives have of Greg Orman, the wealthy businessman running as an independent against veteran Republican Sen. Pat Roberts here in Kansas, is that Orman is, in the words of a recent Weekly Standard story, a “vacuous cipher.”

Watching Orman’s performance in a recent debate with Roberts before a business group in this large suburb of Kansas City, it’s safe to say that image is wrong, or at least incomplete.