This weekend at the famed GOP Playground Convention Kansas Days, Kansas Republicans had their latest opportunity to choose and loose the conservative band wagon that has proved a losing paradigm for the last five years and spun a curious little ditty by Thomas Frank.
Kansas republicans have a history of electing losers to chair their party - after 2002 it was gubernatorial candidate Tim Shallenberger and this time it is ex-Kongressional Kandadate Kris Kobach whose racist tendencies and curiosities about Klan ties served as the nail in the coffin for him in 2004.
Kansas Konservatives went for Kobach over more moderate candidate Mike Pompeo who couldn't even make it out of the first round draft pick with such a conservative crowd.
"Mike Pompeo was the only candidate who had a chance at actually bringing this party together under his leadership at the state level," said Andy Wollen, chairman of the moderate Kansas Tradi-tional Republican Majority.
"Kobach is a very smart guy, a very hard worker," Wollen said. "But he's so smart that he's convinced that he's so right, that he's unwilling to listen to other people whose perspectives differ from his, and he ends up scaring them off." Wichita Eagle.
Pitty.
This is outstanding news for Kansas Democrats! And with a popular democratic governor controlling the state party, Dems have been steared toward the middle but also toward victory. This has left the liberal wing of the democrats grumbling but its also left them included in the victories of all candidates who serve as a contrast to the conservative Kansas status quo.
"Parkinson, a former state senator, has said repeatedly that social conservatives' growing dominance within the GOP ultimately made him more comfortable with Democrats. Told of Kobach's comment, Sebelius spokeswoman Nicole Corcoran said, "It's statements like that that have led Mark Parkinson to leave."
And others to follow. Notable Ex-Republican candidate Nancy Boyda lead the pack with the popular change in 2003 when she refiled as a democrat to oppose Jim Ryun in her first Congressional match-up. Kansas GOP leaders went so far as to mock the switch by having an anniversary party at headquarters commemorating the date Boyda changed to the Democratic side. They even had cake. But the 10million strong evangelical movement fueled by Bush at the top of the ticket proved to be too much for Boyda to overcome in 2004.
But in a 2006 rematch with a slate full of Republican turned Democrats all preaching the same sermon of people powered policy and smarter smaller government not to mention the continued botch in foreign policy at the White House, and an absent Congressional incumbent Boyda made a surprise attack and finished off Ryun just as he realized he was in trouble.
Seems this year the democrats were the ones eating cake while Shallenberger is serving up his homemade humble pie with Democrats sayin' "How bout them apples!"
With Sebelius and her candidates running the show money hasn't been a problem when she is on the ballot. But it has been for Republicans who do well just to hang on for dear life.
"While the state GOP raised $1.2 million in 2005 and 2006 for their state and federal activities, the Democratic Party raised 3 1/2 times that, about $4 million." Kansas.com
Similarly, Kansas Democrats didn't flub their 2004 mistakes by ignoring the ground game among faith based groups, the state's increasing Latino voting block, and rural voters traditionally presumed republican. But with $4million you can run a heck of a field operation that communicates one on one with everybody and their pets at least twice.
Not to mention the mysterious absence in the general after a plethora in the primary - of the Club for Growth's blanket of last minute mail claiming democrats would force your daughters to kill babies. What did appear is a nice use of hit pieces on behalf of shady DEMOCRATIC organizations that finally figured out how to fight back.
Mike Pompeo could have been the Kiss of Death to Kansas Democrats with more moderate tendencies and a connection to the law community that has traditionally followed Sebelius since her days as the KTLA lobbyist.
At the end of the elections - I think 2004 was a great learning experience for Kansas Democrats who discovered that successes in 2002 could all be shot to hell if they didn't work in 2004. And in 2006 they stepped up again and took several state legeslative posts away from conservatives, they took out a conservative AG, they took out a conservative Rep, and they soundly defeated a conservative Congressional Candidate Scott Schwab and a conservative gubernatorial candidate Jim Barnett.
You would think they'd learn. Fortunately for us, they just elected Kris Kobach and handed him the shovel to dig their graves for a while.
Dig with pride Kris! Soon, you'll have a nice big hole in the ground for all your conservatives to be buried. And I suspect it'll be the moderate republicans who will eventually fill it in. But until then they'll continue to vote with us. They'll continue to leave your party after they just can't take Kansans for Life telling them they're not republicans. And you'll continue to lose. You'll lose and there'll be no place like home.