The Kansas for Obama operation is running at full speed. With 18 staffers (compared to just two for Hillary), multiple field offices, a dedicated volunteer base, its obvious that only one candidate cares about running in a state that has gone Democratic only once since FDR.
And only one candidate has the potential to change that, to break the Republican stronghold on this state.
Crossposted at NithinCoca.com
Don't believe me? Ask someone who's done it, our popular Democratic Governor, Kathleen Sebelius.
Sebelius wasn't a one time fluke.
In 2002, she won by a slim margin, 53-47%, shocking pundits to become the first ever Democratic female Governor of Kansas. But people in Kansas assumed it was a fluke, a one time rebuke of bitter in-party fighting among the Republicans, and that after four years, Kansas would go back on the traditional, GOP paved path.
But Sebelius proved them wrong. Working with moderate Republicans and Democrats, she led an economic recovery, helped improve school funding, brought fiscal responsibility to Topeka, and became immensely popular with Kansans, with a huge 58% approval rating. AMONG REPUBLICANS (over 80% from Dems, overall, 67%!).
In 2006, she was re-elected in a landslide, 58% to 41%, winning across the board and across the state, which really has only two Democratic areas, Lawrence, where the University of Kansas is, and Kansas City, Kansas, with its large African American population. It's impossible to win Kansas without winning Republican votes. For a Democrat to win by 17 points? You gotta be kidding me!
Sebelius knows how to win in the heartland, and she knows that only one Democratic Presidential candidate has the potential to make even Kansas blue. Barack Obama.
In my district, which encompasses the wealthy suburbs of Johnson County, kansas (where Thomas Frank of "Whats the Matter with Kansas" grew up), we have a strong district team, volunteers going out canvassing daily (as I will once I finish writing this), hundreds of phone calls reminding people to caucus. It's an organization that rivals that of Iowa and Nevada, except this is Kansas, and there is no media hooplah, there is no intense blog attention, just hard work and results.
Join the movement.
Find Your Kansas Caucus Location
Volunteer for Barack
Phone Bank from your Home
Donate if you can nothing else (Netroots for Obama)
Change is coming to the heartland.