Thank you, KS state Dem chair Joan WAGNON, rebuilding to contender status

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http://news.yahoo.com/how-a-tech-savvy-grandma-is-trying-to-lead-kansas-democrats-out-of-the-wilderness-175448340.html
[font size=5]How a tech-savvy grandma is trying to lead Kansas Democrats out of the wilderness[/font]

TOPEKA, Kan. — Four years ago, Joan Wagnon was a 70-year-old grandmother preparing to retire after decades of public service. A centrist Democrat long credited as blazing the way for women in politics in Kansas, she spent 12 years in the state Legislature and four years as mayor of Topeka — the first and only woman to hold the job. After eight years as state secretary of revenue, Wagnon was preparing to hang it up when "the massacre" happened.

On Election Day 2010, Sam Brownback, a two-term, hard-line conservative U.S. senator and a 2008 candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, won the governorship in a landslide. It was part of a historic GOP sweep in the state in which Democrats lost every statewide office, every race for Congress and more than a dozen seats in the state Legislature. Out of the 125 state House districts, Democrats went from 49 seats to just 33, a historic low. ....

To the shock of her family and friends, Wagnon put off retirement and took on the job literally nobody wanted: state chair of the Democratic Party. "You have finally gone off the deep end," one incredulous friend told her, and her family repeatedly tried to talk her out of it, convinced it was a job doomed to failure. But Wagnon couldn't be talked out of it. Somebody had to save the party — or at least try. "I just couldn't let it go," she recalled in an interview at her office in Topeka.

Four years later, Kansas has become the unlikely battleground for two of the most closely watched races in the country ahead of next Tuesday's midterm elections. Longtime GOP Sen. Pat Roberts is fending off a stronger-than-expected challenge from Greg Orman, a businessman and former Democrat who is now running as an independent. And Brownback is in the fight of his political life, trying to win a second term as governor against Paul Davis, a moderate Democrat who is the minority leader in the state House. Polls show both races in a statistical dead heat heading into Election Day. ....

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