Ben and Jerry’s names flavor after James Thompson

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Audrey Korte

Congressional candidate James Thompson speaks to a crowd of voters in Kingman on Oct. 20, 2018.

Democratic Congressional candidate and Wichita State alumnus James Thompson and incumbent Rep. Ron Estes are both running for Congress in Kansas’ 4th District this year, but only one of them has a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor named after him.

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield announced in September that they would work in conjunction with the national progressive website moveon.org to create a contest that would both create a new ice cream flavor for some progressive candidates in the U.S. and give that flavor a catchy name. Cohen and Greenfield hope this will help boost the visibility of seven progressive House candidates from all over the country before the Nov. 6 general election.

“MoveOn is an independent group that, along with Ben Cohen, picked James (Thompson) as one of the candidates they wanted to support with these ice cream flavors this year,” Stephanie Yeager, communications director for Thompson’s campaign, wrote in an email. “We did not apply or ask for it, it was a neat surprise for us, too.”

Thompson was one of the seven candidates honored in the contest. The flavor of his ice cream will not be available in stores. But Cohen and Greenfield announced on their website that once the winners were selected, Ben & Jerry’s would make a batch of each flavor to raffle off to support the candidates.

The description of Thompson’s ice cream is available on the MoveOn YouTube page. “For Kansas native James Thompson, it’s ‘Liberty, Justice, and James Thompson’s D.C. Dirt Cake.’ A thick layer of crushed Oreos over cheesecake vanilla pudding ice cream.” The name refers both to the Pledge of Allegiance and Thompson’s two children — his daughters are named Liberty and Justice.

The description continues, “Dirt Cake is Kansas’ iconic dessert, and James Thompson grew up dirt poor in Kansas to become a civil rights lawyer. Now, with your help, he’s taking the fight to the nation’s capital, where he’s gonna have to dig through a lot of dirt and corruption to make sure that all Americans get a piece of the cake: affordable health care, a world-class education, and economic opportunities. He’s got the grit to do it, because he’s a U.S. Army veteran and has been fighting for justice his entire life.”

The other six candidates who will have custom flavors made in their honor are Jess King, who is running for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 11th District; Lauren Underwood, who is running for Congress in Illinois’ 14th District; Aftab Pureval, who is running for Congress in Ohio’s First District; J.D Scholten, who is running for Congress in Iowa’s Fourth District; Ammar Campa Najjar, who is running for Congress in California’s 50th District; and Stephany Rose Spaulding, who is running for Congress in Colorado’s Fifth District.

Thompson may have the ice cream advantage, but Estes has the incumbent advantage. In 11 of the last 12 elections, at least 90 percent of incumbents in the U.S. House have won reelection.