In Bellwether Kansas, Republicans Face Fracture
For the taxpayer-funded cost of $40,000, the state of Kansas will run a 30-second promotional commercial on the world’s most famous public television: the 26-foot-tall CBS Super Screen in New York City’s Times Square. In order to “announce our state in a big way,” State Commerce Secretary Howard Fricke explained, the commercial will run three times an hour, 18 hours per day for as many days, in the hopes that a handful of the 1.5 million passerby’s per day will get a tantalizing peek at Kansas. Given recent news from the Sunflower State—including reports of the BTK serial killer, as well as infighting over everything from Darwin to condoms—Fricke and other state officials want to plant “a positive seed about the state.” As far as Democrats—both nationally and statewide—are concerned, however, they needn’t bother.
The Kansas G.O.P., ironically, has planted more than enough exciting news by way of a dramatic and increasingly virulent party split suggesting a formula for Democratic victory in the 2006 and 2008 elections. As both parties turn a bewildered but attentive eye to Kansas, Democrats on the ground argue with more credibility than ever that the way to crack conservative clout lies on a road that runs right through Republican-controlled territory. And they’re right.
Kansas, a state with a rich populist past, exploded to the national forefront of the so-called culture wars in the last decade. Issues like the place of evolution or abstinence-only sex education has crept into state-wide school policy debates. Attorney General and known Christian fundie-fanatic Phil Kline has tried in vain to subpoena the abortion records of girls under 18, all the while maintaining a charade about it’s potential to prevent sexual abuse. Gay marriage, too, took a blow when voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban during the national blunder of anti-gay rights electoral action two years ago.
At the center of this socially conservative motion, however, has been a quiet but driven group of right-wingers who are, more and more apparently, a rancorous, close-minded, self-destructing arm of the Kansas Republican party. And they’ve alienated more than a few lifelong G.O.P.ers. Great news for Dems. Actually, it’s great news for anyone interested in bipartisanship, democracy and moderate, can-do politics. Hell, if you enjoy soap operas you’ll love this.
According to the Wichita Eagle in a report from late May, state Republicans cannot even agree on a general endorsement for a gubernatorial candidate to run against the popular incumbent Kathleen Sebelius. Writing for the Eagle, Steve Painter notes that while the Kansas Assembly of Republicans gave its approval to state Senator Jim Barnett, the K.A.R. was immediately attacked by a group calling itself the Kansas Republican Action Assembly (headed up by conservative hack Mark Gietzen), claiming that the K.A.R. has—horror of horrors—“positioned itself to accept money from abortion-rights supporters.” Fed-up with the infighting, a third splinter group, known as the Kansas Traditional Republican Majority is, in Painter’s words, “presenting itself as the fiscally responsible wing of the party—a wing that doesn’t apply a litmus test on social issues.” “We will endorse pro-life and pro-choice candidates,” Ryan Wright, the organization’s spokesman insisted.
That’s only the tip of the iceberg. Only days ago, Sebelius, who won the governor’s office by focusing on luring moderate Republicans to cross party-lines, announced her new running mate for the fall elections. He is none other than Mark Parkinson, former chairman of the statewide G.O.P. A bold move—and Parkinson, who began his G.O.P career at 19 as a precinct committeeman, accepted, shaking his head at his right-wing former colleagues in the Republican Party. “A lot of people in Kansas are feeling lost right now,” he explained. “I decided I’d rather spend time building great universities than wondering if Charles Darwin was right.”
Parkinson, reported the Los Angeles Times on June 13, “became the third Republican politician in the last nine months to startle this red state by switching to the minority party.” One other is Phil Kline’s challenger, the laconic Paul Morrison, a 51-year-old district attorney. Tired of Kline’s insistence on “forging public policy that fits a narrow agenda that most people don’t agree with,” Morrison switched to the Democratic party. Cindy Neighbor is the other. Neighbor, formerly a moderate Republican, won a seat in the state house in 2002. Backing an education bill that would have raised taxes, she was ordered to desist by conservative party officials who threatened her with retaliation if she went ahead with her vote. She did, and she subsequently lost the 2004 election. This year, she’s running again—as a Democrat.
In the Democratic Party, argues Neighbor, “you can still have your ideas, and you’re accepted.” While statewide party chief Tim Shallenburger routinely blows off rumors of a party split, he does it at his own—and the party’s—expense. The repressive, lockstep mentality of the state G.O.P.’s right-wing has given birth, for instance, to embarrassing Republican county chapter websites sporting instructions for how to spot RINOs—Republicans In Name Only—to thereby stop the traitors in their tracks. As if Republican can mean only one thing. Or, in another hardly conceivable example, the primary challenger to Secretary of State Ron Thornburg (a moderate Republican) is a self-deprecating woman who reportedly took the antediluvian position that family values first began to erode after women won the right to suffrage. “I’m absolutely fed up with conservative Republicans,” indicates wavering Republican Richard Meidinger, a retired doctor. “All the abortion stuff, gay marriage stuff doesn’t belong in the legislative debate.”
And Democrats are keying into stories like Meidinger, especially as they pop up all over the state. Republicans hold a 2:1 advantage over registered voters in this red state, and, historically, Democrats have been so weak that local elections were decided by the August primaries (if the Dems fielded a candidate at all). Despite the odds, Sebelius and other Democrats claim a formula for nation-wide left-wing success is brewing. Appeal directly to disillusioned, moderate Republicans, especially on issues of healthcare and education, say party officials. Get them to switch parties or at least temporarily vote Democrat. And, adds Sebelius, Democrats in Kansas, so long in the minority, have had to develop an instinctual inclination for bipartisanship: “Even if 100% of Democrats vote for something,” she explains, “it won’t happen unless you can draw out Republicans.”
In his now oft-cited book What’s The Matter With Kansas?, Thomas Frank predicts that if Kansas conservatism can be understood and subsequently cracked, an important piece of the puzzling decline of Democratic power can at last be understood. National Public Radio Commentator Peter Hancock suggested on June 4, in fact, that top-level officials from both parties nationally have turned their eyes to the heartland. For if Kansas Democrats are on the verge of perfecting a model to achieve victory in red-state areas of the country, the possibility for a major political realignment, not seen since the South went to the right, is more than possible.
Just as Southern Dixiecrats steadily left the Democratic Party ranks as more and more liberal Democrats (Democrats they perceived to be far-left) took power, moderate or only fiscally conservative Republicans may begin lining up outside Democratic county offices from Topeka to Tonganoxie. Publicity, in fact, may soon require very little Times Square advertising. Already the fateful words are forming in the mouths of political analysts everywhere: As Kansas goes, so goes the nation.
