REPUBLICANS IN KANSAS OUT FOR BLOOD-- EACH OTHERS

Yesterday Ken wrote about the fracture inside the Republican Party in Virginia, one that promises to be valuable to Democrats desperately seeking more leverage for the reapportionment battle coming up in 2010. There's an even more vicious Republican civil war going on in Kansas, one that has been building all year and has already had some significant dividends for Kansas Democrats.

In November mainstream conservatives and moderates abandoned the Kansas GOP in droves, defeating far right extremist kooks like Attorney General Phill Kline and Congressman Jim Ryun-- "and the ideological wars inside the Kansas Republican Party show no sign of ending... 'I think the divide between the moderates and conservatives is deepening rather than closing,' said Kansas State University professor Joseph Aistrup. 'This type of politics is continuing into our future, at least another four years'... Against that backdrop, Kline made headlines with his assault on abortion clinics while the Board of Education [several of whom also went down to defeat] drew worldwide attention -- and some ridicule -- for its endorsement of challenges to firmly established Darwinian theory.

Interestingly, one of the most far right and batshit crazy Republicans in the federal government, Kansas lunatic fringe Senator Sam Brownback, has just announced he wants to run for President (of the United States). Scores of mainstream Republican elected officials have switched parties and become Democrats to escape the opprobrium of being associated with fanatics like Kline, Ryun and Brownback. The incoming Attorney General, Paul Morrison, and the incoming Lieutenant Governor, Mark Parkinson (a former State Chairman of the Kansas Republican Party) started 2006 as Republicans and ended it as Democrats. The vast majority of Kansas voters, embraced them as well as other ex-Republican moderates.

In one of the strongest examples of Howard Dean's 50 state strategy-- an utter repudiation of the Inside-the-Beltway/Rahm Emanuel trageting approach-- the Democratic Party re-elected popular Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius, ousted the 5 term Ryun and defeated right-wingers like Kline all over the state. Seven new state Reps are Democrats, including Annie Tietze, right in the backyard of far right psycho "Rev" Fred Phelps.