Kansas Republican Party in Free-Fall

Tim Shallenberger has a mess on his hands, and my old nemesis from my PTO days at St. Margaret-Mary in Wichita is now a pain in somebody elses ass, and on a much larger scale.

Mark Gietzen. What a piece of work. He's one of those Kansans that inspires Fred Phelps type pride. I just know if Mark didn't have political aspirations, no matter how frustrated, he would fall in with the Phuckheads. Mark Gietzen is the former Sedgewick County Kansas Republican Chair. He is also a parishioner at St. Margaret-Mary, the school my children attended when we lived in Wichita. His Daughter Anna is the same age as my oldest daughter and his son James is one year older than my youngest daughter. Our kids went through First Confession, First Communion, becoming altar servers, all the big moments in Catholic school life together. One day, getting ready for school and getting three kids minimum out the door (our house tended to attract a lot of extras) I told my oldest daughter to go change her clothes, because it was Dress-Down day. She went on about her little second-grader business, and time comes to load up the van and she is still in her uniform. Finally she told me that "Anna's Daddy won't let her wear anything to school but her uniform and the kids make fun of her. They like me, so maybe they won't tease her so much."

I know this creep better than I ever wanted too. I can still see that cheesy moustache, that greasy hair, those oversized glasses, and the prominence of polyester in his wardrobe. I swear to god a natural fiber never touched that man in the entire time I knew him.

Every PTO meeeting, he was there to bitch about something, usually a book that the library had on the shelf, or something he wanted a conservative spin put on in history class. There was lots of Reagan-worship emanating from Mark. It got to the point where they would let him roll on for a bit then someone would look at me and give me the sign, and I would interupt him and point out what an ass he was, and then Father O'Connor would second my motion, and the meeting would break up, and Father O'Connor and a couple of us would go to the rectory to drink Irish Coffee and make fun of Mark Gietzen.

So when I picked up "What's the Matter With Kansas" and found that this schmuck I had slapped down so many times was indeed what is the matter with Kansas, I wasn't really surprised, I just never took him that seriously. In the ten years since I left, he might still be a joke, but nobody is laughing anymore.

He is splitting the Republican party, quite intentionally, on the issue of abortion. I have told him this in person, and I'll tell him here again for all the world to see: Mark, when you grow a uterus, I will consider your opinion.

In their zeal to shove a social agenda that most people, including moderate Republicans, find objectionable, they have dramatically over-reached. In the reddest of red states, Bleeding Kansas, a liberal Democrat, Kathleen Sebelius occupies the Governor's Mansion. The GOP has no one to challenge her next year, so a 2006 re-election is all but assured.

In the most affluent district in the state, the Kansas 3rd, where the largest population center, most of the states college graduates, and the bulk of Kansas' money is located, Dennis Moore is on his fourth term in the house. He is a moderate Democrat and making his name known on the national scene. He cut his teeth as a tough prosecutor. Look for a Dennis Moore Attorney General in certain possible Democratic administrations.

In the most dramatic change to the face of the Kansas Republican party, Johnson County prosecutor Paul Morrison, a lifelong Republican just switched to the Democratic party so he can mount a challenge to Phill (KK)Kline, the Kansas Attorney General who has declared war on a woman's right to choose.

Kansas GOP Chairman Tim Schallenberger says if they don't get their act together he is out of there. The wedge is in place, and the rock that is the Kansas Republican party is slowly being prised apart. And along comes Mark Gietzen to pick up the sledge-hammer and whack it real hard a couple of times for us. Thanks Mark. We couldnta done it without ya!