Turning Kansas Blue? Nah... Just The Two Biggest Cities-- Alexandria And Bernie In The Sunflower State

Jim Thompson with Bernie and Alexandria in Wichita

Hillary Clinton didn't campaign in Kansas. 427,005 people voted for her there anyway (36%). She won the Kansas City area-- Douglas County 31,195 (62.28%) to 14,688 (29.32%) and Wyandotte County 30,146 (61.80%) to 15,806 (32.40%) in landslides and did well enough in Johnson and Shawnee, respectively 129,852 (44.76%) to 137,490 (47.40%) and 33,926 (44.99%) to 35,934 (47.65%). She took the 3rd congressional district up there 47-46%. Sedgwick County (Wichita) was a bummer for her though-- 69,627 (36.88%) to 104,353 (55.28%). For whatever reasons, Clinton wasn't a popular political figure in Kansas. The state primary caucuses saws Bernie beat her in every district and his statewide total was an astonishing 67.7% to 32.3%. Bernie is very popular in Kansas. Who'da thunk?

The Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- the corporatists-- had a convention last week in Columbus Ohio to plot out a way to prevent Bernie and Elizabeth Warren from winning the 2020 presidential nomination. The same wing of the party and their media shills have been spending more time smearing Alexandria Ocasio than on defeating Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan since she defeated one of their own, corrupt New Dem powerhouse Joe Crowley, a few weeks ago in a primary. Bernie and Alexandria were in Kansas City and Wichita Friday, campaigning for progressives Brent Wilders and James Thompson.

Reporting for The Intercept yesterday, Briahna Gray wrote that "the gestalt of the day’s remarks was something bigger than any one race. The speeches-- particularly Sanders’-- announced a unifying theme that felt too coherent to have been thrown together for a House primary or two. Individually, the remarks were compelling. Together, they comprised an unabashed declaration of post-partisan movement building-- a rebuke to those in power who fetishize every identity-based division in order to diffuse the largest coalition in the country: the working class."

In the 3rd district (Kansas City), Welder has a primary from a heavy-funded EMILY's List moderate and some very right-wing Democrat coming up before he can get to Trump rubber-stamp Republican Kevin Yoder. In the 4th district (Wichita), "Thompson is an even better opportunity to prove the Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez case. Thompson is looking to fill the Wichita seat-- home of Koch Industries-- once held by CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Thompson made waves last year when he came close to defeating Republican Ron Estes in a special election in a solidly red district, falling seven points short ahead of this year’s rematch. A civil rights attorney with no prior electoral experience, his near-win is evidence, to some, that Sanders’s platform is as pragmatic as it is progressive. “They say we should be more centrist,” Thompson said to supportive boos before arguing that if Kansans wanted a moderate, or a 'Republican-lite,' they would’ve voted for Clinton in 2016."

Where electoral battles have long been viewed as a struggle over red states and blue states-- an effort to dominate the map like advancing armies, on Friday, that partisan dichotomy was evoked only to be dismissed in favor of a narrative that highlights the universal struggles shared by residents in locales as diverse as Kansas and Vermont and the Bronx. Yes: Trump is a racist. Critiques of his immigration policy and calls for criminal justice reform received enthusiastic applause. And yes: Kansas went red in 2016. But Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, and Thompson each emphasized that the enemy was not a color-- not red or blue, nor black or white. It was the 1 percent, people like the three families who, as Sanders pointed out, have more wealth than the bottom half of Americans.

Where there are working-class people, exhorted Ocasio-Cortez, there is hope for the progressive movement. Later, Thompson echoed that sentiment. It’s not about Republicans or Democrats, he said, but about working people coming together.

Thousands showed up in Wichita and the venue had to be moved to a bigger space to accommodate everyone. You can help Jim Thompson win his race against far right Republican Ron Estes here. There were around 4,000 in the middle of a workday. To Welder, Thompson, Ocasio and Bernie, politics is all about a strategy for economic-justice that is firmly rooted in a commitment to working-class empowerment. When they talk about Medicare-For-All, Job Guarantee and free public universities, that's what they're talking about-- and that's what it means to be a progressive in 2018. Watch... please: