(no subject)

[smg01]

GOP split in Kansas may hint at U.S. trend Our local paper picked up this article, which I guess was done for the LA Times. I thought it was quite interesting.

Some Kansas voters say they feel shut out. “I’m absolutely fed up with the conservative Republicans,” said Richard Meidinger, a retired physician in Topeka. “All the abortion stuff, gay marriage stuff doesn’t belong in the legislative debate.”

Martin Hawver has a name for lifelong members of the GOP like Meidinger: “failed Republicans.” The editor of a respected Kansas political newsletter, Hawver’s Capitol Report, Hawver counts himself among their number, occasionally doing the unthinkable and voting Democratic.

“It used to be you could never go wrong with voting for who the Republicans nominated,” Hawver said. “But that’s changing now. People are a little uneasy.”

Cindy Neighbor is one of them. A veteran member of her local school board and a moderate, Neighbor, 57, unsuccessfully ran against a conservative for an open seat in the statehouse in 2000. She narrowly lost, but won in 2002.

Neighbor wasn’t long for Kansas Republican politics, however. She backed an education bill that could have raised taxes, and party conservatives told her there would be retaliation. She lost the next primary to the same representative she’d ousted two years earlier. Another moderate Republican who’d co-sponsored her bill — Bill Kassebaum, the son of former U.S. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker — was ousted at the same time.

Now Neighbor’s running for her old seat — as a Democrat.

“It was, ‘If you don’t like this — goodbye,”’ she said of her struggles to stay in the Republican Party. As a Democrat, Neighbor added, “you can still have your ideas and you’re accepted.”


It'll be interesting to see if the tide is finally turning back, or if this is going to turn into a schism that winds up giving the religious right more influence. My sense has been that the level of disgust with the way things are has been steadily rising. But then I'm a democrat living in the one overwhelmingly Blue enclave in the state, so I might just be projecting. We'll see.

Comments

[mediumdave.livejournal.com]

Kansas's progressive heritage and long-standing respect for education rarely is mentioned these days, thanks to all of the stupid politicians. I would be overjoyed if this were the beginning of the end of their dominance.

It's funny; I definitely think of Kansas as my home state, even though I wasn't born there and only lived there for ten years (I've been in Illinois for 22 years). And I don't think I'll feel very differently once my folks are gone... there's just something about the place.

[suzannemarie.livejournal.com]

With people like Fred Phelps and Kay O'Connor running around, it's a little harder to sell to outsiders that the state isn't filled with a bunch of crazy reactionaries. Maybe, just maybe things are starting to turn back a bit.

If we can get the idiotic members of the state board of education voted out, that be a good start.

[cosmicbob.livejournal.com]

I thought that you guys booted them? Or did they weasel their way back in on the Creationism shit again?

[suzannemarie.livejournal.com]

We did. There's a lesson here in why you have stay vigilant even when you think you've won.

They're like cockroaches and refuse to die. The last election brought in a slim majority that favors Intelligent Design, Abstinence Only (though I think that one's not going to make it), and hiring superintendents with dubious qualifications.

[cosmicbob.livejournal.com]

Republicans are even better than Democrats at eating their own. But if the neo-cons eat too many of the allegedly "moderate" Republicans, then they won't have anyone left except the likes of Santorum and Hastert.

[peacegood.livejournal.com]

The bad thing fro Democrats is that I think the new trend is for moderate Republicans to switch parties. There is a lot of it going on in Kansas and Missouri right now, and is likely to spread throughout the country… especially now that it isn’t very cool to be a Republican with the Bush administration being as it is. So the result? More republicans. Sure, it’ll look like there are more Democrats, or at least an equal number on paper, but these are people who truly have Republican values in their heart and were not conservative enough to stay in the party. The only slightly good news is that things may shift slightly to the left because these Republican’s in disguise of Democrat’s will definitely be the more moderate and liberal people from the Democratic party.

[suzannemarie.livejournal.com]

I'm a little worried that the moderates being pushed out of the Republican party will lead to the extermists consolodating power. But as cosmicbob points out, they're also really good at eating their own. With the moderates gone, they'll be left to turn on each other.

I'm not a Republican, but I will vote for a rep candidate if I think he/she is the best one. If I'd been old enough to vote when she was running for office, I would have happily given my vote to Nancy Kassebaum in her senate races. We don't seem to get those candidates as much anymore. It's sad to see good people like this get pushed out. It'll be even sadder if the Democrats can't get their act together enough to take advantage of the opportunities now being handed to them.

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

I would never vote for a Republican because I think that most politicians will follow party line when it comes down to the crunch and I would never want to give even the teeniest, tiniest bit of support to the Republicans under any circumstances. *g*

It'll be even sadder if the Democrats can't get their act together enough to take advantage of the opportunities now being handed to them.

I don't know about anyone else, but I feel pretty disenfranchised right now. I might end up Independent and voting for the Green party. *g*

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

Never mind the Republicans, I'm pretty disgusted with the Democrats right now, too, with their failure to support issues that I care about and pandering to the conservatives and religious right themselves. Ick. (And I've been a Democrat for my entire life. *g*)

It would be nice if the tide is turning back, but for me it's too little, too late. I'm still pretty angry at every single person who voted for That Man. I don't think there's any turning back from what he's done to our country and in the world.