Something Very Big Happened In Kansas And Why it Matters to the Nation

Upon arriving home after spending six days with the family in Washington D.C., I have been looking feverishly at the results of the state’s primary elections. As of today, some votes are still being counted but the overall results are very clear: residents of the state clearly rejected Republicans en masse. Republican moderates and liberals, that is.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Kansas political landscape, let me bring you up to speed. On a national map, Kansas is about as red as it gets, but red has not necessarily meant conservative. For many years, although controlled heavily by the GOP (for example 32 of 40 Senate seats), Kansas has failed to be a leader for conservative politics. When people ask me about politics in Kansas, I tell them about our three parties, the Democrats, the liberal Republicans, and the conservative Republicans. Here are a few examples:

Before becoming President Obama’s HHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius (D) was our Governor for eight years. During her reign, Kansas was one of the nation’s leaders of third trimester abortions. Her running mate, Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson was formerly the state’s GOP chairman before switching parties and officially becoming a Democrat. Our current Governor, Sam Brownback (R) is the first conservative in the Governor’s office in my lifetime of nearly 44 years. Need I say more?

High on the hit list for conservatives were “Republican” Senators Steve Morris and Tim Owens. Morris has been the President of the State Senate since 2004 where he blocked many important pieces of conservative legislation. Owens was most recently in charge of the state’s redistricting debacle, costing the state hundreds of thousands of dollars in his failed attempt to protect moderate (read: liberal) Republicans, which had to be settled by the courts. I could go on, but the point is clear: Moderates and liberals have been ruling the roost for many years.

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