WHAT'S RIGHT WITH KANSAS? IT'S INCHING A LITTLE FURTHER LEFT FOR ONE THING! BUT...

Yesterday's KANSAS CITY STAR published a story by Steve Kraske going into the mechanics of the fad that's starting to sweep Kansas-- Republicans abandoning the thoroughly corrupt, internally contentious, and discredited GOP to join the Democrats. And in Kansas, that's a big deal. Only 26.8% of voters there are registered Democrats-- less than registered independents. Of the 40 state senators, only 10 are Democrats. And Kansas has only voted for a Democrat once-- and then just barely-- in a presidential election in the last 60 years, choosing Johnson over Goldwater in 1964. Bush carried 103 of Kansas' 105 counties in 2000 and in 2004. The last Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Kansas was in 1932. The real political contest in Kansas has long been between conservatives like Senators Pat Roberts and Bob Dole and radical neo-fascists like Senator Sam Brownback and the last GOP candidate for governor, Tim Schallenburger, who was so extreme and so unacceptable to moderate suburban Republicans that he was beaten by Democrat Kathleen Sebelius.

Kraske seems to be indicating that if some of these freshly minted Democrats win their elections in November, a trickle could turn into something serious. He introduces us to Steve Luckert a 58 year old farmer and retired teacher running for a state house seat. He was disallusioned by the tactics of the far right of the party. "'I was put off by the meanness of the campaign within the Republican Party and the intentional misrepresentations,' Lukert said. For example, he says he was portrayed as a baby killer even though he considers himself anti-abortion and would bar abortions except when the mother’s health is at risk. 'The far right tends to have a no-way-or-the-highway type of mentality. They’d rather have nothing than to have to give in at all. That’s just not my mentality. I see the Democrats as more willing to compromise on issues in order to come up with more sensible solutions. I think about half of the Democratic Party is very conservative.'"

Cindy Neighbor of Shawnee is also running for a state house seat and she claims she switched parties because the Republican platform is too extreme. "'They’re supporting (school) vouchers and tax credits and the teaching of creationism over evolution. All of that just went against what I really had grown up with, I think, as being a moderate Republican. I said I thought the Republican Party left me. I didn’t leave it. [Switching parties] was actually a feeling of relief. (The reaction) has been very positive. I haven’t had any negative comments. When I talk to them (Democrats), they don’t say if you disagree with us you don’t count.You put your independents and Democrats together and that counterbalances the Republicans.'"

Last month the Thoughts From Kansas blog covered the phenomenon when the former Chairman of Kansas' Republican Party, Mark Parkinson, announced that he was running for Lieutenant Governor-- as a Democrat. And he was following another big name Republican, Paul Robinson, who is running as Kansas Attorney General, also as a Democrat. As Markos pointed out on Kos a few weeks ago, all these and Abilene City Councilwoman Judy Leyerzapf's recent abandonment of the Republicans are making the trickle look more and more threatening to the long-dominant Republicans.

And while the defection of Republican moderates is terrible news for the GOP and great news for the careerist, Insider Democratic Establishment, it isn't necessarily good news for progressive Democrats. First off, the right-wing religious zealots and ideologues among Republicans are not unhappy to see the moderates leave and in all likelihood, the already crazed party will probably lurch even further right. The questions for Democrats, though, is about what the new party members are bringing and what they're embracing.

The DMI legislative scorecard, which rates all congressmembers on a diverse package of votes effecting the middle class gives Kansas' one Democratic congressman, Dennis Moore, a flat F. And, compared to the newly minted Democrats, he's practically a flaming liberal!

Today I spoke to a Democrat running for Congress who was a Republican just a few years ago. I was a little sceptical. It didn't take long for me to see I was completely wrong. His values are Main Street, not Wall Street and it's not even a leap of faith for him to a go against a deadly GOP wedge issue like equal rights for gays or to a thoroughly pro-choice position. "No one I know wants to see Government sticking their noses into our bedrooms and into our private lives," he told me. "People see all these Republican hot button issues for what they are; and everyone is sick of them running these single issue campaigns that have nothing to do with the real issues like runaway gas prices and runaway college costs and runaway medical care." Music to my ears. But the guy is a populist and progressive who wound up as a Democratic candidate the grassroots way.

Other former Republicans are not nearly so progressive but have been recruited by the Inside-the-Beltway DCCC because they still identify with the corporate positions the wrong-headed Rahm Emanuel thinks people around the country still want. "Former" Republicans like Tim Maloney and Christine Jennings, both DCCC shills in Florida, don't sound like Democrats to me. If you're a career hack in D.C. like Emanuel, what difference does it make? They'll help organize the House for the Democrats and then they'll vote their pro-Big Business beliefs-- just like he does.

How many of these new converts are going to embrace the progressive and populist positions and candidates of the grassroots and how many are going to be clinging to years of right wing ideology? I don't know the answer to those questions. But I do fear that the newcomers are going to be a lot more in synch with right-of-center Big Business shills like Evan Bayh, Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman than with progressives like Feingold, Boxer and Kennedy or even of real moderates like Obama, Clinton and Harkin.