Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Lost in Kansas
"Political observers say the fracture within the Kansas GOP may foreshadow the future for the national party," according to Nicholas Riccardi, a staff writer for The Los Angeles Times. "The division between moderates and social conservatives is expected to define the contest for the party's 2008 presidential nomination."
Parkinson recently switched parties to run for Lt. Gov. with popular Democratic incumbent Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.
Kansas has been at the forefront of the culture wars that helped the Republican Party gain national dominance this decade. Twice in the last seven years, its Board of Education voted to teach alternatives to evolution in public schools. Voters in 2005 overwhelmingly approved a ban on gay marriage. The state's attorney general last year subpoenaed medical records of abortion patients."A lot of people in Kansas are feeling lost right now," Mark Parkinson, a former state Republican chairman who served six years as a Republican state legislator. "I decided I'd rather spend time building great universities than wondering if Charles Darwin was right."
Parkinson recently switched parties to run for Lt. Gov. with popular Democratic incumbent Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.
