Kansas political shifts sign of things to come?

[Jon8503]

From: USA Today Editorial - By DeWayne Wickham

Mark Parkinson thinks it's time Thomas Frank wrote a sequel to his 2004 best seller, What's the Matter with Kansas?, which explains how the descendants of abolitionists, free-soilers and trustbusters became the backbone of the conservative movement in U.S. politics.
Frank made his home state the focus of his contention that cultural issues have been used by conservatives to get Midwesterners (and other Americans) to vote against their economic and political interests. But Parkinson says a lot has changed in the Sunflower State and Frank's new book should be called "What's Right with Kansas."

He ought to know. A Republican for 30 years, Parkinson is a former GOP state party chairman. In that job, he spearheaded the unsuccessful effort to derail the 2002 gubernatorial campaign of moderate Democrat Kathleen Sebelius. Sebelius made funding for public education — not hot-button social issues — a major plank in her campaign. She won with 53% of the vote in a state where Democrats are just 28% of registered voters. Last week, Sebelius named Parkinson her running mate in this year's gubernatorial campaign. He replaces John Moore, the current lieutenant governor, who decided not to seek re-election. Like Moore, Parkinson is a Republican-turned-Democrat.

No joking matter When Moore bolted the GOP four years ago to become Sebelius' running mate, Parkinson called his selection a "gimmick." Now he says what the Democratic Party has to offer is no joke.

Republicans have branded Parkinson a traitor, but he told me he didn't break with the GOP, it broke with him. It became more interested in cultural warfare than improving schools, economic development "for everyone" and the idea that government should not be involved in people's personal lives.

"What's happened in Kansas, and what's attracted me and excited me about serving on this ticket is that the person that's captured (the political middle) of Kansas is Gov. Sebelius," Parkinson said.

And that's got to worry Republicans all over this country. Just as Kansas was once a bellwether state for the ascendancy of Republican power, what's happening there now may be evidence of its decline.

Party hopping Johnson County prosecutor Paul Morrison also became a Democrat and is now challenging Phill Kline, Kansas' GOP attorney general.

When key members of the dominant political party jump ship, there's good reason to believe the ship has sprung a serious leak — in Kansas and elsewhere.

In Virginia, one-time Republican and former Reagan administration Navy secretary Jim Webb is seeking the Democratic Senate nomination. He says he split with the GOP after deciding Democrats care more about working-class people.

In February, South Carolina prosecutor Barney Giese, a moderate Republican, joined the Democrats. His defection was the result of frayed relations with conservatives.

In states such as New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New Hampshire, moderate Republicans are struggling to hold onto elected offices at a time when the party's conservative leaders have been hurt by self-inflicted wounds.

President Bush's approval rating now hovers around 33%. Dogged by high-profile scandals and the dissatisfaction of moderate Republicans, conservative leaders are now scrambling to avoid losing control of Congress in November.

"Kansas is ready to lead us singing into the apocalypse," Frank wrote in his 2004 book. "It invites us all to join in, to lay down our lives so that others might cash out at the top; to renounce forever our middle-American prosperity in pursuit of a crimson fantasy of middle-American righteousness."

That Kansas doesn't exist anymore, Parkinson said.

While it's too soon to say whether he is right, Sebelius' election and Parkinson's defection suggest that it may well be time for Frank to consider penning another book about the effects that politics in Kansas have on this nation.

DeWayne Wickham writes weekly for USA TODAY.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/wickham/2006-06-05-kansas-politics_x.htm

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. I have always said that Franks book should have been titled

WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH MISSOURI? because MO was blue until 2000. Examining what made it change to red is a lot more interesting than looking at Kansas, which is red and has always been red and will probably always be red.

Just my .02

[MuseRider]

2. ?

Kansas has a reputation as a progressive state with many firsts in legislative initiatives—it was the first state to institute a system of workers compensation (1910). Kansas was also one of the first states to permit women's suffrage in 1912. Suffrage in all states would not be guaranteed until ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920. The council-manager government was adopted by many larger Kansas cities in the years following World War I while many American cities were being run by political machines or organized crime. Kansas was the first state to ban the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, and Kansas was also the first state to ban the concept of separate but equal schools. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka banned racially segregated schools throughout the U.S.

Since the 1960s, Kansas has grown more socially conservative. The 1990s brought new restrictions on abortion, the defeat of prominent Democrats, including Dan Glickman, and the Kansas State Board of Education's infamous 1999 decision to eliminate the theory of evolution from the state teaching standards, a decision that was later reversed. In 2005, voters accepted a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. The next year, they state passed a law setting a minimum age for marriage at 15 years. <3> On November 8, 2005, The Kansas State Board of Education, at the urging of intelligent design advocates, voted to add criticisms of evolution to the state science standards. However, the Manhattan-Ogden school board has voted to reject the standards. <4>

Kansas has not supported a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964. In 2004, George W. Bush won the state's 6 electoral votes by an overwhelming margin of 25 percentage points with 62% of the vote. The only two counties to support Democrat John Kerry were Wyandotte, which contains the city of Kansas City and Douglas, which contains the college town of Lawrence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas

Edit to add

There are states like Texas where right wing ideology is no surprise. Conservative ideology is rooted in the history of Texas and seems to have been there since it was seized from Mexico. Texas is a place where the mythology of the self-made man rules. In contrast to Texas, Kansas has a history of radical progressivism. Kansas was first settled by "free soilers", abolitionists who fought a bloody border war with their neighbors in Missouri a decade before the outbreak of the Civil War (see the book The Devil Knows How to Ride: The True Story of William Clarke Quantrill and His Confederate Raiders). In the late 1800s and the early decades of the twentieth century Kansas farmers where being crushed first by the railroads (which they needed to reach their markets) and later by the Great Depression. Out of this grew Midwestern populism and what today might be viewed as leftist radicalism. The "plutocrats" and capital power of the East Coast were regularly denounced by Midwestern politicians.

http://www.bearcave.com/bookrev/whats_the_matter_with_kansas.html

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. "red but moderate red"

I guess I should have added that LOL

[Jon8503]

4. I think the reason the focus was and is mostly on KS is the fact that

KS is possibly a little more extreme than MO and other red states. Also, KS is more in the national limelight with Intelligent Design, Brownbeck is way out there, Attorney General and his wanting to get into the personal lives, anti-abortion among other issues and also as they always say, the Topeka minister and his family which unfortunately always gets national coverage.

Brownbeck just yesterday on the gay rights issue taking the floor and with all of his charts and graphs trying to show where gays threaten the hetro-sexual marriages.

Kansas simply gets more national exposure than MO with all of these individuals and causes which I think prompts more focus on it than MO.

MO definitely has gone conservative but not quite as radical.

Maybe someday, MO & KS will become closer to Lawrence's political stance.

Can always hope.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Franks is from Kansas

I think that's why he set the book here.

MO has gone way off the deep end - lots more radical than Kansas. They proposed laws to make Christianity the official religion and to put the bible back in public schools. They are also trying to ban ALL birth control in the state. They took it away from Medicaid recipients and now they don't want ANYONE to have access to it. They also have abstinence only education.

I live in Kansas but teach in Missouri so I am in the unusual position of seeing both states and how they perform politically. Kansas is now and has always been much more progressive than Missouri. Sure it's a red state and has been for a long time but it is a much nicer place for a true blue Dem to live nowadays than MO. And even when MO was blue, it was very conservative.

The other HUGE difference between the two states in the legislature. Sure we have crazy Connie Morris on the school board and Kay O'Connor in Topeka but MO has 10 times as many RW crazies. And they are RUDE. Two years ago, when they were debating the education budget in Jeff City, the House Speaker made siren sounds and fart noises into his microphone when a Dem said something the repukes didn't agree with. They did the same thing when Gov Holden gave his state of the state address that year. I also just watched a video of Blunt giving his address this year and the Dems were pretty rude to him.

I have been writing the legislators in both states for years and can't count the number of repukes in MO who have blocked my email! They are amazingly arrogant.

I can't ever remember anyone in Topeka making fart noises like that or being that rude or downright impolite to constituents.

So count your blessings. The nation might make fun of Kansas, but we are lots better off politically than Missouri. Plus it is just a better place to live, IMO.

[Jon8503]

6. Sorry you have to teach in MO and have to go there, sounds like

it is really a difficult thing to have to do.

I live in MO & work in OP. Haven't found life that bad either place.

Was'nt really a slam on any state or anyone, just an article I thought this board would enjoy being a KS board.

Sorry for the post.

[MuseRider]

8. It was a great article

I loved seeing it and I hope (think) it might be right.

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. OMG don't apologize

We are just discussing the article. Sorry if you took my post the wrong way.

[MuseRider]

7. No fart noises but this is pretty

rude http://cjonline.com/stories/030501/com_hall05.shtml

I love my city and I love my state regardless, there are assholes everywhere.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. Must register

What is it?

[MuseRider]

11. Sorry

I forgot you had to register for this piece of crap paper. I will cut some selections. Sorry it took so long to get back too, I went to see V for Vendetta again...DAMN what a movie!

Mike Hall: Topeka is a city of characters, and some have little of it

By MIKE HALL
The Capital-Journal

Over at the dull people's club where I have lunch on Thursdays, the dull people were outraged over the Toilet Seat Caper.

They had just read the story in the paper that morning about two city council members and a county commissioner placing a toilet seat and effigy of Mayor Joan in a hallway outside the mayor's office the morning after she was defeated in the primary election.

*snip*

Topeka is a town that probably knows better than any other not to say, "Well that group has gone about as low as it can go." We have several members of the community who are very creative at going lower.

It was a little difficult on Thursday to get any work done between the phone calls from outraged citizens. One city employee wanted to know how to write a letter to the editor to express her outrage, a very courageous act for a city employee. She called the incident a hate crime.

It was nasty for a long time over this and these characters are still in our council and still nobody has forgotten this mean spirited incident.

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. That is gross

So I guess the score is tied now.

Ther was a fist fight at a recent Jackson County legislature meeting. Can you trump this?

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A county lawmaker was arrested Monday afternoon following a meeting of the Jackson County Legislature, KMBC's Martin Augustine reported.

The Legislature was meeting in a room on the second floor of the Jackson County Courthouse. According to the police report, a disturbance involving at least two legislators broke out immediately after the meeting was adjourned.

Augustine reported that there was a verbal fight, and then a fistfight broke out. The two men involved in the fight were legislators Dan Tarwater and Robert Stringfield.

Part of the dispute was caught on tape. Stringfield and Tarwater were seen standing nose to nose before a physical confrontation started.

more . . .
http://www.thekansascitychannel.com/politics/6597719/detail.html

[hfojvt]

13. the one phrase is kinda telling

Parkinson says "he did not leave the Republican Party".
That does not make him sound like a Democrat. It makes him sound like a Republican who is running as a Democrat because he does not like the New American Fascist Party that the Republican Party has become. Morrison kinda said the same thing, saying "Democrats are tough on crime". Maybe "me too" Democrats are. Which is kinda how I classify Dennis Moore and Missouri Democrats like Jean Carnahan. Republicans say "vote for me because I will cut taxes, cut government waste (code for social programs), be tough on crime and terrorism and support the military and prison industrial complexes, and create jobs by subsidizing corporations and urband sprawl and environmental destruction" and MTDs say "vote for me because I can be a Republican too!"
They are trying to be "New Coke" instead of "Classic Democrat"

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. Jean Carnahan?

What did she do?

[Big Unit]

15. Welcome to Our Party

I don't get it. Why are Democrats bemoaning the fact that five previously-registered Rs have joined our Party to run for public office? If the Democratic Party wants a real chance to enjoy majority power in this state, the plain and simple fact is that we are going to have to convert some Rs to seeing the light, and some of the converted are going to run for office. I certainly am not content to remain forever the political "red-headed step-child." Both Parkinson and Morrison are moderates, and this is a big tent we call the Democratic Party, so let's welcome them, work for them, celebrate their victories over neocons, and help them become even more moderate in their views as they get used to us, and our message of hope, peace, economic security, higher education, a clean and safe environment, and honesty in government.

[hfojvt]

16. they are Republican moderates

and, based on what Parkinson said, he has changed none of his positions on any issue. I love to see voters change from Republicans to Democrats, but if candidates do it, then they are just moving our party to the right. So we win elections by becoming Republicans? "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." Can you say Pyrrhic victory?

Now, if Morrison and Parkinson, as state-wide candidates, also campaign to help elect Democrats to the state legislature that would be another story (joint appearances and events (if Morrison, Parkinson, Boyda and the local legislative candidates have a common event in my town, then it becomes a media event too, but in the last election I never saw Sebelius (I mean in 2000. She did come to a parade in 2002, but at the very least she should be campaigning to re-elect democratic incumbents and also on any open seats.))