The matter with Kansas now: The Tea Party, the 1 percent and delusional Democrats
Democrats believe demographics alone will defeat the Tea Party. It's a smug fantasy: Economic populism's the answerTHOMAS FRANK
It is a strange thing to say in the year 2014, as the political battle-lines grow harder and our bitter-enders ever more bitter, but there was a time when I didn’t think of my home state of Kansas as a particularly right-wing place.
It is true that the Kansas City suburb where I grew up teemed with standard-issue business-class Republicans back in the ’70s and ’80s; I had been one myself once upon a time. But I also knew that Kansas was the kind of place that valued education, that built big boring suburbs, that never did anything risky or exciting. Its politics in those days were utterly forgettable, dominated by a succession of bland Republican moderates and unambitious Democrats. We were the epitome of unremarkableness. When the notorious “Summer of Mercy” took place in 1991 — the event that marked the beginning of the state’s long march to the right — I remember reading about it from graduate school in Chicago and thinking how strange it was that Operation Rescue had chosen Wichita as the place to make its stand. After all, Kansas wasn’t in the South.
It wasn’t until several years later that I began to understand what a fascinating, upside-down extravaganza it was to see the right eat its way through the good sense of the nation. Of course, many others had written about the movement by then, largely in the key of horror and tearful deploring. But relatively few seemed to get the sheer literary potential of the nation’s big right turn, and as I surveyed the political headlines day after day, I grew more and more amazed at what was going on.
Here was a faction that had made the folkways of ordinary Americans into a kind of a cult — and yet its signature economic policies had brought catastrophic harm down on those same ordinary Americans. Here was a ruling philosophy that, thanks to its sacrosanct conception of itself as the foe of the state, could never acknowledge that it actually ruled. Here was a form of common-man-hailing populism that had raised up an economic elite the likes of which we hadn’t seen since the nineteenth century. What a spectacle it was! What a circus of delusion, deceit, devotion and disaster! Best of all, it was a movement in whose ranks I had once marched myself, which meant I had a certain innate understanding of it.
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http://www.salon.com/2014/02/16/the_matter_with_kansas_now_the_tea_party_the_1_percent_and_delusional_democrats/
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to read this but I will bookmark for future reading.
I believe that a good part of this is the fault of Democrats and Democrats alone. Abandoned by the national party Dems were left to fend for themselves against the money machine called the Koch brothers who have been stirring the John Birch Society stuff from Wichita all along, slowly but surely. It was impossible to compete, especially in the more rural areas. It takes a ton of money to spend the time to go to small town to small town yet that is what it would take. Then, after being clobbered, they decided that there was nothing to the West of Manhattan. Good move 
Then came all the quisling, cowardly stances of oh yes, they will pay just let them do it (that way we do not have to take a position and be held accountable ala our current challenger to Brownback). Kathleen Sibelius was elected because she was running against crazy, obviously crazy and she stood up to it. Since she left crazy has become the norm. We are full of crazy.
My guess is Brownback, although the people do not care for what he is doing, will win. Davis is a coward and nobody will want to vote for that. Are we even going to know what he actually stands for? We will know what he tells us but so far he seems willing to sell out anything in hopes of avoiding a fight.
If Davis should win he will be faced with a legislature that will kill anything he might try to do so he will most likely bargain much like Obama has done and we then head at full speed over the final edge of the cliff into complete RWTeabag control.
Seriously, his response to this latest bill of discrimination was that it was a distraction from the important issues of the economy and education. I would think that his team should be fired and he should hide his head as a person without dignity or compassion. Whatever. Had he gotten in front of it like the decent people in this state and across the country did he could have been a populist hero. Great political decision Dems, just fucking great.
When LGBT issues have to be dealt with by going to the Republicans you know things are screwed up in this state. Now that most of the Republican moderates were ousted (again the Koch brothers) we are left with very few legislators who will actually help.
What is happening here is the result of a long term plan by men with nothing but money and bad intentions for anyone who cherishes freedom and the American Dream. They are a well oiled machine but had been held back by the Democrats and the moderate Republicans. Because both of those groups were cast aside by their national parties they lacked the money to compete against the well oiled machine. Kansas was a testing ground. Now it is going out to every state and little by little they are going to win some, already have, and this country will get worse. We have to elect national leaders with the guts to throw in against this or we are done. This bipartisan bull is no longer bipartisan it is give it all away to the crazy people because who knows what they will do if we don't?
Just my Sunday sermon, sorry if it has nothing to do with the article, I will read it later.
Sign me as totally bummed, irritated and tired in Kansas
Sitting this one out because they didn't have a candidate perfect enough. So they're probably not gonna vote for Hillary either because she comes up less than perfect, so their answer is to thoughtfully stand aside and make way for the bad guys to pull through? Sorry. I do NOT get it. And I WON'T do it. And that way we win - HOW???????? Next time? How many next times do we concede without even trying because we simply must be absolute purists?
How'd that vote for ralph nader work out for ya in 2000? Did it send a message? 
Yep, sent a message alright. We got eight years of bush/cheney. THERE'S yer message. We sat it out in 2010, too. Nobody perfect enough. Meh, no use. So why even bother trying? Now we're stuck with the tea baggers who had enough momentum to start gaining ground. And they used our apathy and laziness and lack of determination to gain a foothold that they won't easily give up. We actually had a shot at nipping that tea bagger "phenomenon" in the bud - and we passed. So now we have jerks like ted cruz to put up with for however long he can manipulate his incumbency. Thanks a whole heap, sit-it-out'ers! Was it worth it?
Every time I hear one of those "we've gotta SEND a MESSAGE!!!!" mewlers at election time, I just want to throw up. The only message you send - by voting for an offshoot with ZERO chance of winning and thereby splitting our total vote take, or sitting it out because nobody was perfect enough for you - is a big fat juicy valentine from the bad guys that reads- "hey THANKS for the nice win, CHUMPS!!!!"
Machiavelli, where are you when WE need you???????