IS THE KANSAS WE KNOW, ON ITS WAY BACK?

…The experimental Governor of Kansas, Sam Brownback

As it was in OZ, Dorothy would not recognize Kansas today.

 

First, let me make it clear as to where I’m coming from.

Yes, I am a Californian, but I was born in the South (Virginia), and was raised all over this great nation before my family finally settled in Silicon Valley.  However, within the hodge-podge of my up-bringing, my father, and a good portion of the family were originally farmers from the normally conservative mid-western state of Kansas.

In fact, even though my father, after living and working for years in the Bay Area, when my mother passed away, my father decided to spend his final years surrounded by his family members in Kansas.  Oh, and this all occurred in the same Kansas town in which he was raised. 

As much as being the true California Democrat that my father had become, he had chosen to spend his final years with his conservative, mid-western aunts, uncles and cousins.

Now today, that same very Red state where Republicans out-number Democrats by 2 to 1, the very same Kansas where the governorship had been taken over by the Tea Party type Republican, Mr. Sam Brownback.  That states is now apparently, seriously, considering electing a Democratic governor to replace the current, one-term GOP Governor Brownback.

OK, so why would a traditionally Red state such as Kansas consider making such a radical move, and to do it after only one term of a Republican governor?

Well, these mid-western conservatives, many times referred to as “Bob Dole / Dwight Eisenhower” moderate Republicans, they have found that Governor Brownback’s “real, live government experiment” for running their state is just a big pile of “Texas Manure”.

I use the “Texas” term here as it was Governor Brownback himself that often referred to, “low-tax Texas” as the model for his extreme Kansas “government experiment”. 

So, now just what is that Kansas government experiment?

Well, Sam Brownback took a state with a balance budget, excellent schools, and a basically well-run state government and turned it totally up-side down. 

In less than 4 years, the new governor pushed for and received steep income and business tax cuts insisting that his programs would spur unprecedented economic growth. But very quickly the results were quite the contrary.  The results to-date have been anything but inspiring. 

There are now large Kansas state budget deficits; the state’s credit rating has been downgraded….twice, and there have been substantial cuts in the state’s education spending.   The budget cuts to the schools were in fact, only later reversed because of a court order.

 

…Dorothy & Toto, are no longer living in the Kansas they knew.

The up-coming election poses a very clear philosophical choice on the state’s governmental policies.

In a recent interview with the Democratic candidate for governor, Mr. Paul Davis, (who is leading in the polls), Mr. Davis made it very clear when he said, “Kansas voters don’t want to be like Texas, They just want to be Kansas again.”

When I think about my own father’s political philosophy, yes he was a Democratic, but he was what we would call “fiscally conservative, but socially liberal”.  As with his conservative Kansas relatives, he and they both believed in keeping taxes low, but agreed to pay enough taxes for providing good schools, roads and local services.  They both valued balanced budgets, governmental prudence and fiscal restraint, but most of them also believed in their Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.

When the Democratic candidate Davis, spoke of the many campaign functions that his party has recently held around the state, Davis spoke of “the many functions we’ve had where we had more Republicans participating than Democrats.”

Davis’s campaign Twitter slogan is #RestoreKansas .  This is a traditionalist’s slogan.  The choice Davis is offering is not between liberalism and conservatism, but rather between two kinds of conservatism: the deeply anti-government Tea Party kind, and the older, “Dole / Eisenhower” moderate Republican variety

And this kind of battle is also going on with the current US Senate race in Kansas. 

 

Who would have thought about Kansas being a battleground state in a race against a long-time Republican senator?

There is now surprisingly, a potentially pivotal Senate contest between an Independent candidate, Greg Orman, and the Republican incumbent, Pat Roberts, and the Independent Orman is ahead in the polls.  Republicans from outside the state are spending millions in trying to keep their long-time Kansas GOP senator in office.

This is just another example showing that the moderate Republicans, those that the FOX channel keeps saying have disappeared from the GOP, perhaps they have not disappeared.  Were they just not  that interested until they became upset and aroused by the likes of Tea Partiers such as their Governor Sam Brownback?

Kansas’ moderate conservatism, as was and is demonstrated by all of my father’s Kansas cousins and relatives, is again hopefully becoming a reality within the state. 

Perhaps next Tuesday, during that first week of November, conservative Kansas may remind the nation that this is all still true.  So hopefully, Dorothy & Toto will finally be back in the Kansas they know.

Copyright G.Ater  2014