R's starting to think for themselves...? In KANSAS...?

holy crap...! if bush is pissing off republicans in KANSAS, can OKLAHOMA and UTAH be far behind...?

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 Democrat 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. What matters is improving schools and creating jobs,' he said. 'I got tired of the theological debate over whether Charles Darwin was right.'

"fixated on ideological issues that really don't matter to people's everyday lives..." yes, true enough... now, if he can just grasp the fact that the fixation has also included ripping the u.s. constitution and bill of rights to shreds, placing the nation in financial jeopardy that may take generations to get out from under, and trying to unilaterally extend the u.s. global empire to the far corners of the world, he will have a more complete picture...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet