Alarm Bells in Kansas: Why Didn't the GOP Listen?

President George W. Bush, the country's leading Republican, is making a last-minute campaign stop in Kansas, where at least nine candidates running on the November 7 ballot are Republicans-turned-Democrats. They include a veteran county prosecutor seeking to unseat the Republican attorney general and a former state Republican Party chairman running as the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor. A cross-section of Democrats, moderate Republicans and independents are backing the party-switchers, saying a Republican obsession with expanded government and deficit spending, along with divisive social issues like abortion and gay marriage, has marred efforts to limit government, boost spending on education and ensure fiscal responsibility....Election 2006, Bonner Springs Chieftan, 11/3/2006

Not only Republicans know that party labels are shifty things. Long ago, there were three distinct wings of the Democrat Party. There were Dixiecrats, a crew that wanted little to do with integration and modernity. There were the Scoopcrats, Senator Jackson's crew that wanted nothing to do with Dixiecrats but did support the national defense. And there were the Surrendercrats, mostly from California and the Northeast, Senator Kennedy's crew that wanted nothing to do with Dixiecrats, scorned Scoopcrats, and wanted to negotiate with any thug who threatened America. The latter group took control of the Democrat party in 1972, ran one President out of office, elected Jimmy Carter, then lost to a succession of conservatives in Reagan, George Bush the elder, that part of Bill Clinton's presidency that surrendered to Newt Gingrich, and Bush the younger. It can happen again, oh mighty members of the RNC. A lot of Democrats this year are running campaigns that sound a lot like those run by Newt Gingrich's generation of Republicans in 1994. A lot of people, wearing the labels of both parties, are sick of the dramatic expansion of government in the last six years. A lot of people are no longer fooled all of the time. This will come as a shock to Nancy Pelosi, should Democrats win the House. She may find herself in a minority even smaller than the one she's in now.

Luther