Pro-Choice GOP Win in Kansas, Kline Defeat Signal End to Social Conservatism

There's no place like home.

Pro-Choice Republican Lynn Jenkins defeated Anti-Choice social conservative former Congressman Jim Ryun in the Second Congressional District in Kansas. Anti-choice national nemesis Phill Kline, who was defeated as Kansas Attorney General two years ago, lost his election to remain Johnson County District Attorney.

Kline didn't just lose. He was trounced 60-40 percent. Jenkins won a very narrow victory that may be subject to recount. Kansans have spoken loud and clear and they are rejecting extremist anti-choice rhetoric. The far-right has overreached, as has the Bush Administration on so many levels, and moderate Republicans tonight claim their first real victory in Kansas, with similar national implications, since Nancy Kassebaum was elected as the first woman to win a U.S. Senate seat from Kansas, in 1978.

Many people in the nation will not think "trend-setter" and "Kansas" belong in the same sentence, but take it from a native, this is a sure sign that the end is near for social conservative ideologues and their stranglehold on the GOP.

Kansas politics historically ebbs and flows between conservatives whose politics descended from Southern pro-slave forces, and progressives with politics that descended from Abolitionists who came from New England.

"Bleeding Kansas" set a trend toward Civil War, tonight Kansas could be witnessing the first evidence of Culture Peace; the beginning of the end of a 30 year political cycle dominated by social conservatives.

This pro-choice Republican victory in uber-conservative Sen. Sam Brownback's home state, should give Sen. John McCain pause as he considers his selection for vice president. The extreme fringe of his party, whom he once referred to as "agents of intolerance", is trying to deny former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge a spot on the GOP ticket because he is proudly pro-choice. Will McCain recognize the trend in time, and offer independent and moderate Republican women voters a reason to consider his candidacy, or will he treat pro-choice voters with the same respect he treated his wife when offering her up to compete in a wet tee-shirt contest in which pickles and bananas are involved?

Kline, along with Jim Ryun, who lost his Congressional seat to Rep. Nancy Boyda (D-KS) two years ago, are paragons of the social conservative ideal of family values. Kline abused his offices and ignored real issues to doggedly pursue Dr. George Tiller, a Wichita physician that performs abortions, trying to get his hands on the private medical records of Dr. Tiller's patients. Ryun, an Olympic silver medal runner, was exactly what many anti-choice legislators are - a reliable vote on social issues who doesn't aspire to accomplish anything substantive in Congress.

But they had the right "family values" and thought voters didn't care, and/or wouldn't notice, as they pursued ideological agendas on taxpayer time. As they and other social conservatives put their narrow views above the work of the taxpayers, the country slowly slipped into economic free fall, got entangled in a war that should never have been waged, and racked up the largest deficits in our nation's history. Social conservatives and their family values propped up the careers of Phill Kline and Jim Ryun, both now distinguished as signs of end times for their ideological movement.

Social conservative family values, it turns out, are about controlling other people's personal life decisions, invading their privacy, and distracting our democracy from critical economic and security issues. Social conservative family values, it turns out, are further outside the American mainstream than they would like us to believe.

Last week on Race for the White House, NBC's Political Director Chuck Todd said;

The Republican Party has been eating itself alive. The party just went too far to the right in too many instances. So many libertarian-style Republicans, they are not motivated by social issues, but are motivated by taxes and smaller government ... They are not going to be able to use social issues [in states like Ohio] as effectively as they have in the past.

 

If, as Tony Perkins of the conservative Family Research Council said in his newsletter last week, they "can claw their way back into this election", it will not be because the GOP followed social conservative ideologues off the far-right cliff. But that is what Tony Perkins thinks. It is what Sen. Sam Brownback and Sen. Tom Coburn think. It is what James Dobson thinks, along with Pastor John Hagee, the Catholic Conference of Bishops, the Concerned Women for America, Karl Rove, Operation Rescue, Fox News, Anne Coulter, Laura Ingram, Rev. Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, and many others who have profited handsomely from the movement they helped build. No, those on the extreme right believe the Republican brand is in trouble because the GOP has not yet gone far enough to the right. American voters appear to see it differently.

The Kansas GOP primary suggests a very different path for McCain, but Democrats need not fear. The McCain of 2000 who saw the truth of these "agents of intolerance" is nowhere to be found. The McCain of 2008 will follow Perkins, Brownback, Coburn, Hagee, Dobson, and the rest of the anti-contraception, anti-choice extremists off the cliff in a futile attempt to rally a base that never has, and never will, trust him.

Sen. John McCain may then have the satisfaction of presiding over the demise of the social conservative movement that forced him to give up his maverick image as a straight-talker. In the end, history may judge that as his greatest contribution to his party and his country.

 

Special thanks to Todd Epp, former producer/reporter for KTWU-TV in Topeka, Kansas for his live blogging on the races at Kansas Watch. Great to connect Todd!

See RH Reality Check's Phill Kline coverage for more details on just how huge this win really is.

 

 

Comments

[annsnewfriend]

How about this:

roses are red
violets are blue
sugar is sweet
and whatever

(Trying to find something that's not too controversial! Wouldn't want to be CENSORED. Does this come on a bit too much with the whole "red" thing? It's bi-partisan, you know. Violets aren't really "blue," they're violet.)

Hasta.

[MsLiz]

Maybe there is hope for Alabama.

[TheIndependenceParty]

As a kid I lived in Kansas, before the days of Nixon, and Cheney, and Rove and the Bushes. My GGGrandfather fought for the Union in the Civil War, and is buried there in Kansas. It has always been conservative in the truest sense, but intolerance only came in the 80's and since.

I am so glad that good state I loved so much has begun to retake control of her government, office by office.

McCain will not, can not, retreat from his new bombastic allegiance to the Reich and its leaders. He sold his soul to get the nod as their candidate. Indeed the only reason he has is his assurance, I believe, that they can name the VP candidate who will likely succeed McCain in office. He can not share the good sense of Kansas. The bargain he has struck won't allow for that.

[mabinog]

The religious right started a campaign to proselytize through politics back around the beginning of the Reagan administration. They have not quit since.

The fundamentalist right has a major media presence, their candidates are in every state legislature and and of course in Congress. They have publishing houses and there are numerous evangelical entrepreneurial mega churches scattered across this country that draw 10's of thousands of people every week. All of those people are ostensibly supposed to be proselytizing as well and frankly I think many of the fundamentalists religionists are purposely using cult recruitment tactics on people, if they have ever not done so.

It seems that the fundamentalists who were once trying to slip "stealth" candidates on local school boards have moved on to conscientious objector pharmacists, creationist activism, faith-based federal programs and state referendum campaigns.

Then of course we have the extremists that are given little exposure, the Restorationists and the Dominionists.

Is this a trend? i doubt it. It is just the more moderate in our society slapping the fundamentalists on the hand for being a little too arrogant.

[wm1066]

Thanks, I needed that.
There is hope for Kansas, and America.
Good article.

[Liberal2]

Although it would be nice if your assumptions were correct, I doubt they are. Social conservatism didn't lose, republican candidates did. Big difference. I'd bet that if the republican candidates had run under a "Conservative Party" label and not with republican endorsement, they would have won. It would be great if I was wrong, not you.

[Scott Swenson - Huffpost Blogger]

There are always little signs of when things start to shift. 30 yeas ago it was social conservatives in Kansas beating moderates for school boards, then the legislature, and it built up a movement. The fact that these defeats happened at all -- of these two prominent champions of social conservatism -- is noteworthy. I hear what you're saying, and I don't think these are the only signs nationally, but I do think they are significant. Not saying either of us is right or wrong, just reminding us all that subtle shifts are important to note and build upon. Thanks for commenting.

[bekc123]

Excellent!