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GOP Ideological Rift Hits Second District in Kansas
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Race
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Jul 05, 2007 12:50pm |
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| Category | News |
| News Date | Thursday, July 5, 2007 06:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | By Nathan Levinson | 10:45 AM; Jul. 05, 2007 | Email This Article
The Kansas Republican Party has endured a long-running feud between its conservative activist wing and more moderate “establishment” wing. For years, though, its impact was felt in U.S. House politics only in the suburban Kansas City 3rd District, where the GOP rift abetted the efforts of centrist Democratic Rep. Dennis Moore to win and hold the district.
Elsewhere, the Republican divide was tamped down by the dominance of conservative Republican incumbents who seemed to be entrenched in Kansas’ other three congressional districts.
That changed, however, with the 2006 election in the eastern 2nd District, in which Democrat Nancy Boyda upset five-term Republican Rep. Jim Ryun — a staunch conservative on economic and social issues — by 51 percent to 47 percent.
Ryun almost immediately stated his intention to seek a rematch, blaming his defeat largely on the national anti-Republican climate that cost the GOP control of both the House and the Senate. His supporters noted that 2nd District voters just two years earlier had gone strongly Republican for president, favoring President George W. Bush by 20 percentage points over Democrat John Kerry.
But district Republicans who lean more to the center said the party needed a new face. And they got one when state Treasurer Lynn Jenkins, re-elected to her current office in a 2006 landslide, announced her candidacy in early April. |
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