Democrats Dare To Dream Of Recapturing Bush Heartland (GOP Defections)

[Mark E. Smith]

Guardian Unlimited

From Kansas to South Carolina, Republican moderates are turning their backs on the neocons and defecting to the enemy

Paul Harris in Topeka, Kansas
Sunday June 25, 2006
The Observer

The squat, bunker-like building in a south Topeka suburb does not look like a place to turn American politics on its head. Nor does Mark Parkinson, a tall, affable man, look too much like a revolutionary. But here, deep in the American heartland, are the warning signs of a political earthquake.

The two-storey office block is Parkinson's campaign headquarters as he runs as Democratic candidate for deputy governor. So far, so normal. except that only a few weeks ago Parkinson was a Republican. In fact, he was Kansas Republican party chairman.

His defection to the Democrats sent shockwaves through a state deeply associated with the national Republican cause and the evangelical conservatives at its base. Nor was it just Parkinson's leave-taking that left Republicans spluttering with rage and talking of betrayal. It was that as he left Parkinson lambasted his former party's obsession with conservative and religious issues such as gay marriage, evolution and abortion.

Sitting in his headquarters, the new Democrat is sticking to his guns. Republicans in Kansas, he says, have let down their own people. 'They were fixated on ideological issues that really don't matter to people's everyday lives,' he said. 'I got tired of the theological debate over whether Charles Darwin was right.'

This is music to Democratic ears and has potential implications for November's mid-term elections. Kansas has been an iconic state for the Republican right, a symbol for issues such as teaching creationism in schools and fighting abortion rights. The modern republican party, masterminded by political guru Karl Rove, has harnessed fury over such topics to allow the Republicans to dominate US politics since 2000. This was the topic of Thomas Frank's hit book of the 2004 presidential election campaign entitled: What's The Matter With Kansas? It used the state's falling under the spell of conservativeRrepublicanism to explain national American politics.

But in a swath of heartland states such as Kansas, Democrats are seeing the first signs of their party's rebirth. Parkinson is not alone in switching sides. In Virginia, Jim Webb, a one-time Reagan official, is seeking to be a Democratic senator. In South Carolina, top republican prosecutor Barney Giese has defected after a spat with conservatives. Back in Kansas another top Republican, Paul Morrison, also joined the Democrats and is challenging a Republican to be the state attorney-general.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1805330,00.html?gusrc=rss

[snot]

1. But are they going to vote like Dems?

Or just pull the Dem pols' center of gravity further to the right?

[Nikki Stone 1]

2. My thoughts exactly!

Sounds like we're being infiltrated. Another Rove strategem?

[Mark E. Smith]

3. I Suspect They Are A Reflection Of The Politics In Their Home States

But I do apologize for presenting what struck me as good news.

I know how painful that can be to some.

[xxqqqzme]

5. it is because the neo-cons, in

combining forces w/ the fundies, have dragged the right to the extreme edge. Moderate rethugs, once known as conservative, are refusing 2 go 2 the edge (probably afraid they will be pushed off). Conservative rethugs no longer recognize their party and/or appalled at its new, reformulated ideology. As such the old left is now the new middle. Those of us, who have remained in the slightly to the left middle, now appear to be raving lefty/socialists.

[Vidar]

4. Thanks for posting. It is good new, but parnoia is also understandable.

[samsingh]

6. repugs and their friends have betrayed America

they have resulted in over 2500 soldiers dying for a lie and 50,000 Iraqies being massacred - again for a lie.

repug evil is stark, real, and rancid. they have betrayed every American value and should not lecture anyone.