To the National Republican Party: Welcome to Kansas

Much is being made of a civil war within the Republican party. All I can say to the Johnny-come-latelies noticing the erupting schism between the religious right wing of the party and the moderate, libertarian/business wing of the party is this...Welcome to Kansas.

The Kansas Republican party has been divided since the early 90's and it is finally collapsing under it's own weight. And not a moment to soon. I've had a front-row seat for a good part of it and even struck a couple of blows against them myself.

The revolt of the moderates has been well documented in the Kansas press. The civil war, as the local press refers to it, is between the moderate Tim Shallengerger wing of the Kansas Republican Party and the Mark Gietzen batshit-insane wing.

Let me say right now that I know Mark Gietzen and he and I were bitter enemies. My children went to school with his when we were in Wichita the second time. He and I have fought bitterly at PTA meetings and I looked him in the eye and told him when he announced his candidacy for the state senate that I would see him in hell before I saw him in the senate.

He lost in the primary in a landslide.

He went on to become the State Chairman of the Kansas Republican Party, and the seeds of the parties destruction were planted.

You're welcome.

As goes the Kansas Republican party, so goes the national party. Look at all of the Kansas Democrats who won election on Tuesday after switching parties. Paul Morrison was elected the states new Attorney General as a Democrat. He was last elected two years ago as a Republican to the Jounson County Prosecuting Attorney post.

Two elections in a row, the wildly popular Kathleen Sebelius has tapped a Republican to be her Lieutenant Governor, and both have switched parties to be her second. The new Democratic LtG-elect, Mark Parkinson, is also a former state Republican party chair.

The Kansas Republican Party is about six years ahead of the national party as far as their civil war is concerned. In Kansas it has progressed to the point where a moderate, common sense Republican can not get on the ballot in the general election. It has gotten to the point where the venerable Johnson County Sun endorsed a whole slate of Democrats this year, and it is a Republican Newspaper. For editor Steve Rose, the son of the papers founder, it was a bitter moment. The entire metro area went into shock at that editorial. Those of us who actually know Steve Rose are still picking our jaws up from the floor; and that column was printed a month ago.

Nancy Boyda was a moderate Republican who switched parties and pulled off the biggest upset in the land on Tuesday when she unseated Jim Ryun. The track star couldn't out-run the populist uprising that catapulted Boyda into the House of Representatives. Someone should have pointed out to Jim the self-defeating nature of voting against the military and veterans benefits when your district is home to both Ft. Leavenworth and Ft. Riley. More than one anonymous comment was left on this blog by soldiers at the forts who were voting for Boyda.

What happened in Kansas on Tuesday was the result of a perfect storm. It is also a harbinger of things to come for the national Republicans. Democrats, are we going to be ready to capitalize on it like the Democrats in Kansas have done?

Election Day

This is it folks, the day we have been waiting for, the day we take back our country from those who have stolen it from us and trashed our liberties, all the while decreasing our stature and making us less and less safe.

Go to the polls if you have not already, and cast your vote. Remember to use the optical scan machines and not the touch-screen vote-flippers. Optical scan ballots can be hand counted in the event of a recount. We have worked and networked, we got out the vote and we phone banked. I posted like a woman obsessed. Okay, I am a woman obsessed, but still...

It is so an election in a politically active household. Newspapers and pizza boxes are taking over the joint. The dumpster is handy, but being Democrats we recycle, so we are just dealing for now.

Today is the most significant election day of my lifetime. The day we finally get to issue a stinging rebuke to this president and his failed policies and pogroms. As he hit the campaign trail, limiting his appearances to supposed friendly territory, his popularity dropped and the opponents of the candidates he campaigned for got the post-presidential appearance bump.

Here in Missouri, it is going to be a long night. If the margin of victory is less than 10,000 in the senate race between Claire McCaskill and Jim Talent there will be a recount. It is possible that we will not know the outcome for a day or two. We may see lawsuits filed by noon.

I have never lived in the Kansas 02 a single day of my life. But I have issued a lot of units in the VA hospital in Leavenworth, and we are a military family. I want what is best for that district and I fervently believe that that is Nancy Boyda. That is a race I will be watching. The members of the military who have kids vote where they are stationed because they have kids in school. The military is ready for change. This is the biggest disention in the ranks that I have seen in my entire life. What is happening is historic. Both Leavenworth and Fort Riley are in the Kansas 02. (As to that dissent among officers...I told you so...months ago). There is also a blue wave washing over Kansas that is going to lift the Boyda boat.

Dennis Moore in the Kansas 03 and Kathleen Sebelius are sailing to reelection, and Phill Kline and Paul Morrison are set to switch jobs. Paul is going to win the Attorney Generals race, and he will have to vacate his position as Johnson County Prosecutor. Phill Kline will be able to secure that gig, and he lives in Shawnee. And he will fuck up there too and that will hopefully be the end of his political career. On Wednesday we start looking for a candidate to unseat that Bush appologist Pat Roberts. He has abused his spot on the intelligence committee and it is time for him to go. Slattery, you out there? Come home. Kansas needs you, because we want Dennis Moore to stay right the hell where he is. No other Democrat can hold the 03 so securely, we are not sacrificing a senior congressman for a senate seat, put that notion out of your mind right now! In 2010, Kathleen Sebelius is going to unseat Sam Brownback. But we'll get back to that in two years. Right now, we need a Democrat for 08. Anyone have any ideas besides Slattery? Yeah me neither. Jim, back to Kansas with you.

Here in Missouri we need a new governor. Jay Nixon is the leading Democratic contender, he has won statewide elective office consistently since 1993. He will unseat Matt Blunt, should Blunt survive the coming primary challenge by Sarah Steelman. She declared her intent to challenge him during his innaugural address. And more power to her. I can tolerate a Republican who isn't insane.

We need Robin Carnahan to stay where she is, in the Secretary of State's office. We have faced to many election problems in this state to risk that position to a Republican. So who is going to be our candidate for Attorney General? No Republicans. Never again, not after that damned Ashcroft. We learned our lesson.

Let's concentrate on holding the seats that matter to Missouri. If we hold the offices of Auditor, Secretary of State, Attorney General and quite possibly governor, we are grooming our candidate to knock Bond out on down the road, if not in 2010, then in 2016. Politics is a long-range game, my friends, and victory goes to those who look anead, not behind. Politics might be a zero-sum game, but it is also never ending. There is always another election to plan for and that planning starts tomorrow.

And can we please pretty please get somebody out of the Ozarks that it ain't just a cryin' damn shame they weren't strangled in their crib? Y'all gave us that gaggle of Blunts, Rod Jetton and John Ashcroft. C'mon. Give us a break up here! We were issued a limited number of Charles Wheelers, Ike Skeltons, Emmanuel Cleavers, Susan Montees and Claire McCaskills to counter them, and Dr. Wheeler is retiring. Dr. Dean has some battle plans to help you out with party building. Let's turn those red ridges purple by 2010, okay?

Cast your vote today. Continue your GOTV efforts. This one isn't over until the polls close this evening. Which is precisely when the game-clock starts running for the next election.

It looks like a whole lot of people have had enough

If the election were tomorrow, the Democrats would pick up 35 seats in the House and at least 4 seats in the Senate, possibly the 6 they need to have a majority, and with it, cloture.

The political climate today is worse for the incumbent majority than it was in 1994 when the Republicans took over. Independent political researcher Stuart Rothenberg predicts "a Democratic wave" on November 7.

Charlie Cook, publisher of The Cook Political Report, was more specific. He predicted this weekend that Republicans are most likely to see a net loss of 20 to 35 seats in the House, and with them their majority in the lower chamber.

In the Senate, according to Cook, Republicans were poised to lose at least four, but possibly five or six seats.

The list of most endangered Republican senators included Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Conrad Burns of Montana.

They could easily be joined by Jim Talent of Missouri and George Allen of Virginia, who are fighting for their political lives in very tight races, analysts said.

These poll numbers had Bush on the campaign trail, but one has to wonder about the length of his coattails when his approval rating is mired in the thirties. He "spiked" upward to 37% approval after consistently polling about 33% for several weeks running. But really, anything Bush can accomplish for the party looks like it will be too little, too late.

The economy, once the Republican parties ace-in-the-hole, Americans favor Democrats to manage things better by a 47 percent to 34 percent margin. Likewise, they have fallen out of favor as the part best able to deal with the threat of terrorism, having seen their strong lead turn into a statistical tie of 40 percent to 39 percent.

But the most stinging rebuke of all: By a 12 percent margin, Americans now trust Democrats rather than Republicans to handle Iraq. The Newsweek poll found 45percent of Americans trust Democrats on the prosecution of the war, versus 33 percent who favor the Republicans.

On broad policy issues, 53 percent of likely voters said they favored Democrats, to 39 percent Republican.

Victory is within reach, folks. In fact, at this point, it's ours to lose. We have nine days to put Claire McCaskill and Jim Webb over the top in Missouri and Virginia. Nancy Boyda has nine days to close the narrow, within-the-margin-of-error gap and unseat Jim Ryun in the Kansas-02. Nine days for Sara Jo Shettles to continue building her base to unseat Sam Graves in the Missouri-06.

This is our year. A whole lot of news was dumped in the Friday news cycle. If that was just the beginning, and this week gets worse for the Republicans, we get the Senate too. Hell, we may even have a majority of Governors Mansions.