A look at the Kansas political landscape...

The New York Times published an article yesterday examining the changing political landscape in Kansas and showcasing the viewpoints between conservatives and republicans:

The New York Times
By John Eligon
Published August 5, 2012


"TOPEKA, Kan. — In eight years in the Kansas Legislature, State Senator Dick Kelsey said, he never voted for a tax increase and frequently supported spending cuts. As an evangelical pastor, a staunch opponent of abortion and an acknowledged leader in the fight to elect conservative lawmakers, he has been endorsed by Kansans for Life and the National Rifle Association.

Yard signs for state candidates at a Republican forum in Topeka. Conservatives say some party members are too moderate.

But after publicly criticizing elements of Gov. Sam Brownback’s tax plan this year, Mr. Kelsey found himself among a cluster of conservative Republican state senators that a more conservative coalition here is working to defeat in Tuesday’s primary elections.

Kansas politics have been tilting more to the right for at least the last two decades. And now that shift is prompting a bitter clash within the state’s Republican Party. Conservatives are feverishly working to win the Senate and drive out the last remnants of what they see as moderate Republicanism in a state with a deep-rooted history of centrist Republicans in the mold of Bob Dole, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Nancy Kassebaum.

The divisive primary campaign reflects the ambivalence gripping Republicans across the country, yet the situation here is more complicated than the typical conservative-versus-establishment disputes.

What sets the battle in Kansas apart is the distance between the factions. Conservative and moderate Republicans essentially operate as separate parties, and so far, no one — including Mr. Brownback — has stepped forward to try to bridge that gap in the popular tradition of moderation. Instead, each side claims to represent the soul of the party.

“We don’t even know what it means to be a Republican in the state of Kansas,” said Casey W. Moore, a conservative Senate candidate from the Topeka area.

Nationally, conservatives have been defining the party in their image. Last week, they scored a big victory in Texas when a Tea Party favorite defeated Gov. Rick Perry’s favored candidate in the primary for an open United States Senate seat. That outcome followed conservative victories this year over established Republicans in Senate primary races in Indiana and Nebraska.

Kansas conservatives are optimistic that they can do the same on the state level and upend long-held assumptions that the people of their state prefer moderate lawmakers.

Two years ago, conservative Republicans here captured a majority in the Kansas House of Representatives — around 70 of 125 seats — for the first time in about four decades"...(read more)