In Kansas Primaries, Conservatives Attack Fellow Republicans

But after publicly criticizing elements of Gov. Sam Brownback’s tax plan this year, Mr. Kelsey found himself among a cluster of conservative Republican state senators that a more conservative coalition here is working to defeat in Tuesday’s primary elections.

Kansas politics have been tilting more to the right for at least the last two decades. And now that shift is prompting a bitter clash within the state’s Republican Party. Conservatives are feverishly working to win the Senate and drive out the last remnants of what they see as moderate Republicanism in a state with a deep-rooted history of centrist Republicans in the mold of Bob Dole, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Nancy Kassebaum.

The divisive primary campaign reflects the ambivalence gripping Republicans across the country, yet the situation here is more complicated than the typical conservative-versus-establishment disputes.

What sets the battle in Kansas apart is the distance between the factions. Conservative and moderate Republicans essentially operate as separate parties, and so far, no one — including Mr. Brownback — has stepped forward to try to bridge that gap in the popular tradition of moderation. Instead, each side claims to represent the soul of the party.

“We don’t even know what it means to be a Republican in the state of Kansas,” said Casey W. Moore, a conservative Senate candidate from the Topeka area.

Nationally, conservatives have been defining the party in their image. Last week, they scored a big victory in Texas when a Tea Party favorite defeated Gov. Rick Perry’s favored candidate in the primary for an open United States Senate seat. That outcome followed conservative victories this year over established Republicans in Senate primary races in Indiana and Nebraska.

Kansas conservatives are optimistic that they can do the same on the state level and upend long-held assumptions that the people of their state prefer moderate lawmakers.

Two years ago, conservative Republicans here captured a majority in the Kansas House of Representatives — around 70 of 125 seats — for the first time in about four decades, and, for the first time in at least half a century, Kansans elected a conservative governor, Mr. Brownback. Conservatives need to pick up three or four seats to win control of the 40-member Senate, where 14 moderate Republicans and 8 Democrats often vote together to maintain a coalition that gives them a majority.

The move toward a more conservative Kansas began about 25 years ago, when a small group of fiscally conservative legislators, feeling marginalized by the Republican leadership, began promoting an agenda that emphasized free markets, tax cuts and reducing government spending. They teamed with grass-roots social conservatives and, in 1994, gained a significant number of seats in the Kansas House and ousted its moderate speaker.

Conservatives continued to gain seats in the Legislature, and the rest of the country began to take notice of their brand of politics. “What’s The Matter With Kansas?,” Thomas Frank’s 2004 book, which was made into a film, documented that rise.

Now that conservatives are closer than ever to full control of the state’s government, fighting between the two factions of the Republican Party has become more overt, and nastier.

“The conservatives, they hate the moderate Republicans,” said Burdett A. Loomis, a political science professor at the University of Kansas. “They think they really have conspired with Democrats and have prevented conservative forces from their rightful place of dominating the government.”

Mr. Brownback is openly challenging the moderate members of his party. Interest groups like the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and Americans for Prosperity are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads attacking moderates and rallying support for conservatives.

Moderates have gotten a lift from Bill Graves, the former two-term Republican governor who has held fund-raisers for the candidates he supports. Mr. Graves, who was in office from 1995 to 2003, is familiar with intraparty scuffling: the conservative state party chairman resigned to challenge him in 1998, when he successfully ran for re-election. Moderate candidates have also benefited from hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from labor and teachers’ unions.

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How Past New Hampshire Primaries Turned Out (ContributorNetwork)

The second great contest of the 2012 election cycle is the New Hampshire primary, scheduled for Jan 10. At hazard are 12 delegates for the Republican national convention, which will be distributed proportionally.

Past results of the New Hampshire primary had often negated the results of the Iowa caucus, which generally take place a week before.

2008 New Hampshire Primary -- The Republicans.

According to the New York Times, the winner of the 2008 contest on the Republican side was John McCain, which was surprising as Mitt Romney, who was a favorite son of a sort due to his coming from next door Massachusetts, had been expected to win. McCain, who went on the win the nomination, got just over 37 percent of the vote and seven delegates, Romney got just over 32 percent of the votes and four delegates. Mike Huckabee, who had won the Iowa caucus, took just 12 percent of the votes and one delegate.

2008 New Hampshire Primary -- The Democrats

According to the New York Times, then-Senator Hillary Clinton barely edged out then-Sen. Barack Obama, the winner of that year's Iowa caucus, with 39 percent and 36 percent of the vote. Each got nine delegates. John Edwards, who had been a senator, a 2004 presidential and vice presidential candidate, won about 17 percent of the vote and four delegates. Obama would eventually win the nomination and then the presidency.

2004 New Hampshire Primary

Since George W. Bush was the incumbent president, only the Democrats had a seriously contested primary. According to CNN, Sen. John Kerry, who was from next door Massachusetts, won with 38 percent of the votes and took 13 delegates. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean came in second with 26 percent of the vote and took nine delegates. Kerry would eventually win the nomination.

2000 New Hampshire Primary -- The Democrats

According to US Gov Info, then-Vice President Al Gore, the eventual nominee, won the primary with 50 percent of the votes and took 13 delegates. Bill Bradley came in second with 46 percent of the votes and took nine delegates. Gore would be the Democratic nominee that year.

2000 New Hampshire Primary -- The Republicans

According to US Gov Info, Sen. John McCain shocked the presumed front-runner, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush, by winning the primary with 49 percent of the vote, taking nine delegates. Bush came in second with 30 percent of the vote and six delegates. Steve Forbes came in third with 13 percent of the vote and taking two delegates. Despite the unexpected defeat in New Hampshire, Bush would rally back to win the Republican nomination and then the presidency by the narrowest of margins.

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Paul Ryan to endorse in GOP primaries, help replace ‘timid’ congressmen with ‘bold conservatives’ with ‘bold conservatives’ (Daily Caller)

Karl Rove 'super PAC' won't favor any 2012 candidate during primaries (The Christian Science Monitor)

Washington – Supporters of Mitt Romney, the front-runner in the Republican presidential field, have launched a “super PAC” to raise money to promote his candidacy, even as leaders of American Crossroads, the biggest of the Republican super PACs, promised Friday to remain neutral during the primary season.

That signals that American Crossroads intends to save most of its fire for the general election, when the GOP nominee will be up against a well-funded President Obama, and will not choose a horse in the GOP nominating race.

The wrinkle in that scenario is that the new pro-Romney PAC and American Crossroads share a key executive – an overlap that had reporters closely questioning the Crossroads leaders about the neutrality assertion when they appeared Friday at a Monitor-sponsored breakfast gathering.

Gas prices and five other liabilities for Obama in 2012

Since the 2010 Supreme Court decision that opened the door to campaign spending by a wider array of contributors, so-called super PACs (political action committees) have been springing up. It's now permissible for these super PACs to raise unlimited amounts of money from individuals, corporations, and unions, as long as the donors are disclosed and the groups do not coordinate their spending with federal candidates.

According to a Washington Post report, Romney supporters have launched Restore Our Future PAC. It is not known how much Restore Our Future has already raised to support the Romney campaign.

American Crossroads, a group founded by Karl Rove, former President Bush's political adviser, among others, insists it will remain neutral during the 2012 primary season.

“It is important for us to clearly state that Crossroads … will not be involved in the Republican presidential primary. We are just not going to do that,” said the group's chairman, Mike Duncan. Though the group says it will not spend money to advance the cause of any primary candidate, it might spend as the primary season ends if Democrats attack the GOP's presumptive nominee, its executives said.

Reporters asked Mr. Duncan and Steven Law, the group’s president and CEO, pointed questions about American Crossroads' neutrality. The Washington Post story about the pro-Romney super PAC noted that its board of directors includes political operative Carl Forti, who was political director for Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign. Mr. Forti is now political director of American Crossroads.

“Carl is a contract employee with American Crossroads. He has other clients; we knew he had other clients. But clearly none of us are going to be involved personally in presidential campaigns. And he is not either,” Duncan said.

“The only thing I would add to that,” said Mr. Law, “is the work that Carl does for us is work that every contender for the Republican nomination would be supportive of, which is that he is helping find ways to make sure President Obama does not return to office.”

Getting bin Laden and five other boosts to Obama's reelection bid

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