Nine ex-Republicans run as Dems in Kansas
Political crossover striking in bedrock Bush territory
By Peter Slevin
The Washington Post
Updated: 3:54 a.m. MT Oct 19, 2006
WICHITA - Paul Morrison, a career prosecutor who specializes in putting
killers behind bars, has the bulletproof résumé and the rugged looks of
a law-and-order Republican, which is what he was until last year. That
was when he announced he would run for attorney general -- as a
Democrat.
He is now running neck-and-neck with Republican Phill Kline, an iconic
social conservative who made headlines by seeking the names of
abortion-clinic patients and vowing to defend science-teaching standards
that challenge Darwinian evolution. What's more, Morrison is raising
money faster than Kline and pulling more cash from Republicans than
Democrats.
Nor is Morrison alone. In a state that voted nearly 2 to 1 for President
Bush in 2004, nine former Republicans will be on the November ballot as
Democrats. Among them is Mark Parkinson, a former chairman of the Kansas
Republican Party, who changed parties to run for lieutenant governor
with the popular Democratic governor, Kathleen Sebelius.
"I'd reached a breaking point," Parkinson said, preparing for a rally in
Wichita alongside Sebelius. "I want to work on relevant issues and not
on a lot of things that don't matter."
The Kansas developments coincide with efforts by Democrats across the
country to capture moderate Republican and independent voters dismayed
with partisan bickering from both parties, particularly from the
Republican right. The spirit of the attempted Democratic comeback in
Kansas, set by Sebelius, is a search for the workable political center.
Though yet untested in the election booth, the Democratic developments
in Kansas reflect polls in many parts of the country. As elsewhere,
Democrats and moderate Republicans say they are frustrated with policies
and practices they trace to Republican leadership, including the Iraq
war, ballooning government spending, ethics violations and the influence
of social conservatives.
A long-standing split among Kansas Republicans has deepened in recent
years. One fresh sign came from the Johnson County Sun, which said it
would endorse virtually the entire Democratic ticket, including Morrison
and Parkinson, after endorsing fewer than a dozen Democrats in the past
half-century.
‘The Republican Party has changed’
"So what in the world has happened?" publisher Steve Rose asked in a
recent column. "The Republican Party has changed, and it has changed
monumentally. You almost cannot be a victorious traditional Republican
candidate with mainstream values in Johnson County or in Kansas
anymore." Ron Freeman, executive director of the Kansas GOP, called the
migrating candidates -- Parkinson, Morrison and seven state House
candidates, including one party-switching incumbent -- "a simple case of
political opportunism."
"It's really more about them than it is about the party," Freeman said.
"They obviously feel the Democratic Party is weak enough that, without
any history in the party, they can be front-runners in the party."
Republicans control three-quarters of the state Senate and two-thirds of
the House. The state has not elected a Democratic U.S. senator since the
1930s, although voters have been more willing to put Democrats in the
governor's mansion. Rep. Dennis Moore became the lone Kansas Democrat in
Congress in 1998 by appealing to crossover moderates -- the heart of
this year's strategy.
Democrats consider it significant that 58 GOP incumbents in the state
House drew Democratic opposition this year, compared with 39 in 2004. In
the September primary, moderates mobilized to carry two Board of
Education seats held by conservatives who had embarrassed many Kansans
by endorsing a fundamentalist-Christian critique of evolution.
The recruiter-in-chief is Sebelius, who persuaded Republican Cessna
executive John E. Moore to switch parties in 2002 and run to be her
lieutenant governor.
"These are people who felt banished," Sebelius said in an interview
before crowing to Democratic campaign workers: "We have some remarkable
conversions. My favorite kind of revival is going to a place where
someone says, 'I've been a Republican all my life, and I've seen the
light.' " Sebelius, who has a solid lead over Republican challenger Jim
Barnett, is the daughter-in-law of a Republican former member of
Congress, and she likes to say the first Republican she converted was
her husband. She has shown, notably in debates over school funding and
the state budget, that she can negotiate compromises acceptable to both
parties. Kansas has had a balanced budget for four straight years after
six years of deficits.
This year, with Moore stepping aside, Sebelius recruited Parkinson, who
views himself as squarely in the mainstream, talking up fiscal
responsibility and a favorable business climate. He favors embryonic
stem cell research, a woman's right to choose abortion and the teaching
of evolution as settled scientific theory.
It was also the governor who sold Morrison on the attorney general's
race. "She said what I'd been thinking for three years," Morrison said.
In a Morrison radio ad, John Walsh of "America's Most Wanted" introduces
the Johnson County district attorney as "one of the toughest prosecutors
Kansas has ever seen" and names two of Morrison's best-known murder
cases. Walsh asserts, in a dig at Kline, that after 26 years as a
prosecutor, Morrison has the "right priorities."
Kline is a confident politician who has buoyed the Republican right and
disturbed his opponents. He drafted a law restricting late-term abortion
and won a recent Supreme Court case reinstating the death penalty. His
most controversial moves were subpoenaing the medical records of more
than 80 women and girls who received abortions in 2003 and seeking to
require health workers to report the sexual activities of girls under
16.
‘Fairly moderate’
"The office has become much more political under his leadership,"
Morrison said in an interview in his Olathe office. Morrison says his
political hero is former U.S. senator John C. Danforth, the Missourian
who recently published a rebuke of the GOP that contends the national
party is beholden to the Christian right.
"Most Kansas Republicans are fairly moderate," Morrison said. "They're
like most Kansas Democrats."
Kline spokeswoman Sherriene Jones denied Morrison's contention that the
Kansas GOP has moved too far to the right: "The Republican Party
reflects Kansas values, reflects loyalty and reflects family," she said.
"It's Mr. Morrison who has changed."
The Democratic National Committee is spending money and sending staff to
Kansas as part of Chairman Howard Dean's much-debated 50-state strategy
of extending the party's influence in unlikely places. The DNC will not
reveal its spending or the size of the staff, but a spokesman said the
infusion permits a statewide organizing effort not possible before.
With Sebelius and Parkinson so far ahead in the gubernatorial race,
attention has shifted to the competition for attorney general,
considered too close to call. As Parkinson, who describes Morrison as
his best friend, puts it, "It's going to say a whole lot about what the
state of Kansas is right now."
‘Temporary setback’
Whatever happens, Kansas State University political scientist Joseph A.
Aistrup said, the duel between Republican moderates and conservatives
will no doubt continue. He said the party switchers represent a
"temporary setback" for the state GOP.
"The cultural conservatives have lost before, and they just keep on
coming back," Aistrup said. "They don't pick up their marbles and go
home."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15322219/
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
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