A diseased Kansas elephant?
Former Republicans express disillusionment with party policy by
switching to the Dems ticket
Monday, September 4, 2006
You need sniff no further than the Kansas Republican Party's own
website to get a decent whiff of that putrid, clinging stench of fear,
which now hangs over the state GOP like a wet pachyderm queef.
"No Need To Panic," pleads the homepage at ksgop.org. Immediately
beneath that quivering hyperlink lies an even more telling bit of
Freudian mock-bravado: "What, Me Worried?" (Question for Republican
strategists: Exactly at what point in an election year is it considered
desirable to draw direct comparisons between your party and Alfred E.
Neuman?)
The reason for the Republicans' soiled Dockers? Mid-term elections
are coming up and the political landscape is looking to be about as
kind to conservative politicians as penicillin is to the clap.
Considering that the Kansas Republican Party has a lock on both
chambers of the state congress which would make Mussolini blush, and
considering that George W. Bush received a greater vote share in Kansas
for the 2004 election than he did in Texas, how is it that Kansas
Republicans are so petrified?
Don Haider-Markel, professor of politics at the University of Kansas,
thinks that the party's national woes might be affecting them on the
state level.
"Bush's approval ratings are pretty low, the Republican Congress'
approval ratings are pretty low. It's not such a great time to be a
Republican right now," he says.
Case in point? Kent Goyen. A lifelong resident of Pratt, Kan., and a
lifelong registered Republican, Kent's not exactly the portrait of a
sushi-eating, Volvo-driving eunuch. He's a farmer and substitute
teacher in a part of the county that's commonly thought to be
slightly to the right of 17th century Salem.
In a rural drawl that wouldn't be out of place narrating "The Dukes
of Hazzard," Kent speaks derisively of "you guys back east"
(meaning us cosmopolitan types in Lawrence) and "pie in the sky"
politics. Goyen, in short, is someone whose profile gives Karl Rove a
hard-on. This November, Kent's running to represent the 114th Kansas
Congressional District - as a Democrat.
"I'm not sure that the Republican Party is really the voice of what
I really think it ought to be or what it was years ago. There was an
ideology change," says the newly minted Democratic candidate. "By
changing parties to the Democrats, then everybody gets a chance to be
represented. I thought that was kind of important."
Kent's not alone. By the Kansas Democratic Party's own count, there
are nine formerly Republican candidates who have jumped mascots and are
now hoping to ride the jackass to victory this November.
In a press release regarding the defections, Kansas Dems are feeling
uncharacteristically *****-sure. "These former Republicans join a
large field of Democrats running this year, including a full slate of
candidates for statewide office, State Board of Education and Congress.
We welcome these new leaders, as well as all Kansans who are committed
to putting the best interests of our state first," says KDP Chairman
Lawrence Gates.
"That's not terribly uncommon, historically," confesses
Haider-Markel, not meaning to burst the KDP's bubble. "If one
party's doing better, it increases the pressure to switch parties,
especially if you've always been a person that doesn't always go
along with the party line."
The KDP's churlish glee about the converts may not entirely be
spin-miestering donkey dung, however.
"It's been almost 10 years since you've seen such a configuration
of forces that would suggest people should switch parties. The last
time we had a big bias toward one party or another like this was 1994,
when the Republicans took back the House," says Haider-Markel. And
this time, "Democrats are far more mobilized to vote."
Suggest that sort of political calculus to Kent Goyen, and he bristles
at even being labeled a politician. "I'm just a guy who wants good
government and good things for the state."
Kent has a meat and potatoes platform of improving education and
bringing more jobs to Kansas. A platform, he thinks, that runs contrary
to the Kansas Republicans' obsessive compulsion for divisive social
issues (i.e., Guns, God, Gays and Darwin).
"They just seem to be fairly intolerant of anything that doesn't
meet their goals," he says. "You can't legislate morality.
You're never gonna solve anything and so far as I'm concerned you
waste a lot of time."
Haider-Markel thinks that this rift in the Republican Party on the
hot-button topics is driving many moderates into the arms of the
Democrats.
"A lot of it is the social issues," he says. "They feel that the
conservatives aren't very tolerant of their view-points. Partly
because the moderates don't even want to really deal with these
social issues. They're not motivated to be public servants because of
these issues, whereas many of the conservatives are."
Perhaps the primary reason for Kent's party switch - and maybe the
eight others: Mark Parkinson, Paul Morrison, Steve Lukert, Cindy
Neighbor, Duane Mathes, current Abilene city commissioner Judy
Leyerzapf, Walt Chappell, and Brenton Weeks - is some good
old-fashioned, Free State populism.
"We used to elect statesmen. We don't elect statesmen anymore. Not
that I'm going to count myself as a statesman. But, anymore, it seems
like we've got to elect 'Democrats' or 'Republicans'. And
that's not the way it should be. That's part of the reason for the
party switch, too. To get some more people involved and so you can get
a choice," Kent says.
From the deepest, reddest heart of Republican Kansas, this neo-Democrat
adds, "We forget that the government is us."
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