If It Can Happen in Kansas, Maybe We'll See A Change

[Bobbieo]

Editorial by Steve Rose in the Johnson County Sun in Overland Park, Kansas

As we prepare ourselves to make political endorsements in subsequent issues, I can tell you unequivocally that this newspaper has never endorsed so many Democrats. Not even close.

In the 56 years we have been publishing in Johnson County, this basically has been a Republican newspaper. In the old days, before the Republican civil war that fractured the party, we were traditional Republicans....

The point is, I can name on two hands over a half century the number of Democrats we have endorsed for public office.

This year, we will do something different. You will read why we are endorsing Kathleen Sebelius for governor and Mark Parkinson for lieutenant governor; Dennis Moore to be re-elected to the U.S. Congress; Paul Morrison for Kansas attorney general; and a slew of local Democratic state legislative candidates. These are not liberal Democrats. They are what fairly can be described as conservative Democrats, and we can prove that in our forthcoming endorsements.

But I could not help but put in perspective a more global phenomenon that has led us to re-evaluate our traditional support for Republicans....

The Republican Party has changed, and it has changed monumentally.

You almost cannot be a victorious traditional Republican candidate with mainstream values in Johnson County or in Kansas anymore, because these candidates never get on the ballot in the general election. They lose in low turnout primaries, where the far right shows up to vote in disproportionate numbers.

To win a Republican primary, the candidate must move to the right.

What does to-the-right mean?

It means anti-public education, though claiming to support it.

It means weak support of our universities, while praising them.

It means anti-stem cell research.

It means ridiculing global warming.

It means gay bashing. Not so much gay marriage, but just bashing gays.

It means immigrant bashing. I'm talking about the viciousness.

It means putting religion in public schools. Not just prayer.

It means mocking evolution and claiming it is not science.

It means denigrating even abstinence-based sex education....

But everything else adds up to priorities that have nothing to do with the Republican Party I once knew.

[Hav]

1. .

It's good to see that real Conservatives realize how their party changed under this Administration.
And there is also hope that a large part of America can change as well.

[Warpy]

3. It's almost 27 years since Ronald Reagan

sold the party to religious zealots on the far, far right. It's high time the mainstream party noticed their party's been swept out from under them and delivered to lunatics simply because those lunatics represent a reliable voting bloc.

I don't have a bit of sympathy for any of them. They've voted to sell our country out too many times.

[MarianJack]

2. Nice!

K & R!

[DocSavage]

4. Try running

a Liberal Democrat in Kansas. Other than KC and parts of Wichita, there is no base for them. If you live here, you know that people can take conservative dems, I mean Sebelius has lowered taxes. She runs as a fiscal conservative and kind of a libratarian (IMO). Pretty much hands off social issues. Conservatives are even giving her a pass on in-state tuition or illegals and drivers licenses for them also. It is because she is in the middle.

But do not kid yourself. Kansas is a very conservative state at heart. There is no way that Hillary, Kerry, or any other presidential candiate that they feel is too far left will carry the state. Don't start on the economy, (doing well here), abortion (Abortion is a Sin) signs on the side of every road. Want to get votes here, run like Sebelius, a candidate will do fine, also, this is a very pro military state, strong defense ties, strong patriotic feeling, (Smallville is here you know), and a strong religious practicing population. Here, school prayer is not a bad thing, guns in every home (it seems that way anyway).

I will go out on a limb, and say that a far right candidate will not do well either. But, if it comes down to a far left (in the voters eyes) and a far right, the right wins. People may be PO's big time with the President, but that does not equate into a democratic vote. For most voters in this state, that is a "hold my nose" vote.

[SheilaT]

5. I live in Johnson County, Kansas,

and yesterday I got a phone call asking me if the election were held today, who would I vote for in the Kansas State House race, the Democrat or the Republican. That was the only question asked. Of course I said the Democrat. I ran for that seat two years ago and lost to a popular moderate incumbent Republican who lost in this year's primary to an "extremely conservative" (very right wing) challenger. As a consequence, the guy running for the seat has an excellent chance of winning, and has been endorsed by both the Sun and the Kansas City Star.

My real point in this post is the poll. Only asking about the State House race. And I've gotten at least one other phone call polling me on several other races, including the State House one. And never before have I been polled on that particular office. Not sure who's behind the poll.