What's right with Kansas. Hopefully.

After all the attention paid to the book What's the Matter With Kansas? and beyond that the nationwide attemtps to figure out if the country is going 'red' or 'blue,' it's nice to see a story like this: actual Kansans saying that although there might not be something wrong with their state, there's something very, very wrong with the party that runs it.

As we prepare ourselves to make political endorsements in subsequent issues, I can tell you unequivocally that this newspaper has never endorsed so many Democrats. Not even close. (. . .)

But I could not help but put in perspective a more global phenomenon that has led us to re-evaluate our traditional support for Republicans.

This change may come as no surprise to our most cynical conservative readers who would dismiss me (and others on the editorial board) as being a moderate Republican and, therefore, the same as a Democrat. To them, there is no difference. (. . .)

The Republican Party has changed, and it has changed monumentally.

You almost cannot be a victorious traditional Republican candidate with mainstream values in Johnson County or in Kansas anymore, because these candidates never get on the ballot in the general election. They lose in low turnout primaries, where the far right shows up to vote in disproportionate numbers.

To win a Republican primary, the candidate must move to the right.

What does to-the-right mean?

It means anti-public education, though claiming to support it.

It means weak support of our universities, while praising them.

It means anti-stem cell research.

It means ridiculing global warming.

It means gay bashing. Not so much gay marriage, but just bashing gays.

It means immigrant bashing. I'm talking about the viciousness.

It means putting religion in public schools. Not just prayer.

It means mocking evolution and claiming it is not science.

It means denigrating even abstinence-based sex education.