LINDA MOWERY-DENNING
editor and publisher
Ellsworth County Independent Reporter

Norb Dreiling must be spinning in his grave. Or looking down on the state he called home for 80 years and laughing very loudly at the sorry organization that passes for a Democratic party these days in Kansas.

Dreiling, a Hays Democrat, was credited at the time of his death in 2005 with making it acceptable to be a Democrat in Kansas. Under his leadership, for the first time an incumbent Republican governor was defeated by a Democratic challenger, Robert Docking, who went on to be elected to the state’s highest office a record four times. Dreiling was smart, funny and he knew better than almost anyone that Kansas politics is all about hard work and communication. People vote for candidates they know, or those who have come knocking at their doors during the campaign.

Janis Lee, who has served this region of Kansas for years in the state Senate, is a perfect example. She went to Topeka after defeating an entrenched Republican in a district filled with registered Republicans. Lee has retained her seat because, like Dreiling, she is smart and one of the Senate’s hardest workers. That’s a lesson a younger generation of Kansas Democrats have failed to embrace.

We recently learned that the state’s minority party has turned to Tom Wiggans, a pharmaceutical executive, to carry its banner against U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, the GOP’s expected nominee for governor. True, Wiggans, 57, was born in Kansas. And he is a member of the board of trustees of the University of Kansas Endowment Association. That pretty much exhausts his relationship with the state he wants to lead.

Republicans could hardly wait for Wiggans to finish his announcement speech before pointing out he has never voted in Kansas. That’s because most of his life has been spent in California.

Can anyone say carpetbagger?

All one has to do is look at the state’s Big First Congressional District for more evidence of the Dem’s slide into irrelevance. For the first time in memory, the Republicans failed to have an heir apparent waiting in the wings when Jerry Moran announced he will leave his House seat to run for the U.S. Senate.

The only guy the Democrats could find was Alan Jilka of Salina, whose chances of winning a general election are slim to none.

What happened? A year ago, thousands of Kansans, many of them younger voters, turned out in a snowstorm to participate in Democratic caucuses around the state.

We’ve heard almost nothing from party leaders since the election. It appears little has been done to build on the enthusiasm of the presidential election. When, for instance, was the last time Ellsworth County Democrats met?

Right now, Kansas Democrats have a handful of stars, including Dennis McKinney, who left the Legislature to become state treasurer, and Ellsworth’s Josh Svaty, who resigned from the Kansas House of Representatives to become acting secretary of agriculture. Unfortunately, a handful does not a party make.

Kansas has a long tradition of Republican politics and that isn’t about to change. But any party, especially when it’s on top, does better with competition. Kansas voters deserve a choice when they go to the polls. The state’s Democratic party has fallen far short of giving them that. Dreiling and his Democrats stood for something. Unfortunately for Kansas voters, those days are long gone.