Democrats dare to dream of recapturing the Bush heartland

[Mabus]

Another story about GOP defections to the Democratic party in Kansas and elsewhere. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1805330,00.html Thanks in large part to Sebelius's attention to real issues, the Kansas GOP is defecting because they are increasingly disenchanted with Rove's nonissue-oriented strategy. They aren't coming to take over our party. Instead, they are becoming Dems because they're willing to embrace what we stand for. Their party has abandoned them.

fwiw, my husband used to go to high school with Mark Parkinson in Wichita.

Democrats dare to dream of recapturing the Bush heartland

From Kansas to South Carolina, Republican moderates are turning their backs on the neocons and defecting to the enemy

Paul Harris in Topeka, Kansas
Sunday June 25, 2006
The Observer

***

Sitting in his (Mark Parkinson, former Kansas GOP chair) headquarters, the new Democrat is sticking to his guns. Republicans in Kansas, he says, have let down their own people. 'They were fixated on ideological issues that really don't matter to people's everyday lives. What matters is improving schools and creating jobs,' he said. 'I got tired of the theological debate over whether Charles Darwin was right.'

***

One of the key reasons Kansas Democrats are in fighting mood is their governor, Kathleen Sibelius. Sibelius's vote represents an island of Democratic blue in a sea of Republican red on the political map, and she has impressed by reaching the middle-ground voters in a startlingly successful first term. Shunning the hot-button social issues, she has focused on education, jobs and health. This has earned her approval ratings touching 68 per cent in a state that was overwhelmingly pro-Bush in 2004.

Sibelius has cracked the political holy grail: persuading heartland Republicans to vote Democrat. 'Her style works here, and then bringing over Parkinson to the Democrats has been the coup of all coups,' said Professor Bob Beatty, a political scientist at Washburn University near Topeka.

As the Democrats enjoy a resurgence, the Republicans are in disarray. Parkinson's defection encouraged other moderates to abandon a party controlled by right-wing religious zealots. In political terms they are called Rinos, or Republicans in Name Only. If enough Rinos desert, the strict ideologues in the party are likely to drift further right. 'A number of conservatives are actually pleased that the moderates are leaving the Republican party. That really could spell trouble,' Beatty said.

rest of article at link: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1805330,00.html

Later in the article Larry Gates, our party chair, thinks that we need to go the middle. As many of you know I want to go to the left. The pendulum has already swung too far to the right, we need to go to the long neglected left.

[Big Unit]

1. There is Magic in Moving to the Center

The center on the political spectrum IS to the left of right wing reactionary politics. If we can move majority political consensus in this state towards the center, we will be to the left of where we have been for 15 years.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. Any move is to the left of where we are now

I am with Mabus. I say we go as far left as we can. I think the voters are ready.

[Big Unit]

3. The Swing of the Pendulum

I didn't mean to contradict Mabus. I only meant to say that the pendulum is indeed starting to swing back from the far right towards the left. It has to pass through the middle on the way.