A Prediction

I have decided to make a prediction, today, February 7, 2008. It is about the Republican Caucuses in Kansas which will be held February 9, 2008.

I predict that Huckabee will win the caucuses, or at least do very well. Romney might, but his Mormon background will work against him, and McCain will not do as well.

And, further, the better Huckabee does in the State, the better the Democrats will do in November.

There are reasons for me making this prediction, which deal with local politics that the national media might miss. In particular, since about 1990 the Republican party has been split in Kansas between the Conservative wing, and the Moderate wing. Over the past ten years this has become so much of a split that the Conservatives and Moderates will not celebrate victory together, but rather will celebrate at different locations.

On Tuesday, February 5, 2008, I attended a Democratic caucus. This caucus was swamped. That is, there were over 1600 people attending, although I overheard the people in charge noting that four years ago the same caucus only had 35 people show up. While much of this can be attributed to increased interest in the election this time around, as I was standing in line to get in, I overheard several people saying that they had changed their registration from Republican to Democratic.

In itself this may not be significant, because even 1600 voters in this district is not much, but as a trend it could be. The truth is that the Republican party in Kansas has been taken over by the Conservative wing, and the result is that the more Moderate wing can be seen to be abandoning the party, either to become inactive, or Democratic.

This is a case of the Republican party very carefully shooting itself in the foot.

There are two actions that the Conservative controlling committee has done which have the affect of alienating the Moderate wing. The first (and less blatant) is their insistence that to get party support, every person endorsed by the party has to endorse only Republicans. While their short sightedness may see this as a way to ensure party loyalty, the real affect is quite different. That is, they intend to make is so that the Moderate Republicans have to endorse the Conservative candidates even when those candidates are ridiculous, as happens. The real affect is to alienate the Moderate wing.

Here in Johnson county, which is the most populous county in Kansas, the situation is worse, that is, they've taken even more careful aim. A few election cycles ago the Conservative Republicans managed to get Phil Kline elected as the State Attorney General. He was elected by a very slim majority over the Democratic candidate Chris Biggs, who did no real campaigning.

Once in Office, Kline showed himself to be more interested in persecuting abortion clinics than in fighting crime. That is, too much of the State's resources were used in illegal activities designed to bring trumped up charges against abortion clinics. The last election, the people judged his activities as being unacceptable by voting him out of office by a two or three to one margin. In his place, Paul Morrison was elected.

Paul Morrison had been the Republican District Attorney of Johnson County prior to running. However, he was a Moderate Republican, not a Conservative Republican, and chose to change parties to run against Kline in the general election rather than take his chances against the Conservatives in the primary election.

In the general election, Morrison won in Johnson county by about a three to one majority. Before the election, the Republican central committee announced that they would replace Morrison with Kline to punish Johnson County, should it go against Kline. Accordingly, after the election, Kline was chosen by the Conservative Republican committee to replace Morrison as Johnson County District Attorney. Further, Kline has shown the same type of actions since as caused people to vote for Morrison in the first place.

The result is a further alienation of the Moderate Republican Party by the Conservatives. Also, Morrison (and other very visible leaders) showed a way out for Conservatives. That is, he showed that Conservative could win elections running on the Democratic ticket. Therefore, it would not be hard to imagine that many in the Conservative wing would choose to jump ship with Morrison to escape the stifling affect of the Conservative Republicans.

This would mean that, if the Conservatives have chosen to jump to the Democratic party, then the rump Republican party would be even more tilted to the Conservative side. Therefore, they might prefer a conservative candidate such as Huckabee or Romney to a less conservative candidate like McCain. However, they would also represent the people of Kansas even less in this decision than in years past. Therefore, using the Conservative hold on the caucuses as a guide, the more the conservative candidates win by, the more likely the reason is that the Moderates had jumped ship, and the more likely it is that the State will go Democratic in November.

Comments February 19, 2008

The Republican primaries are over, and the prediction I made has proven correct. That is, Huckabee won by a 60? majority.

Before the election, and after I made the comments above, Romney decided to withdraw, so the Conservative vote was not divided at all.

I find it significant that Huckabee won the Republican caucus with 60? of the vote, about 11,000 votes. During the Democratic caucus, Obama won by about 75? of the vote, about 75,000 votes. This means that there were about 100,000 total Democratic votes, and 19,000 Republican votes. This is a major political shift toward the Democrats, as expected.

I should modify my prediction about the November election somewhat. According to the national news sources, McCain has so much of a lead that he will likely win the Republican nomination, although it is not 100? certain. if the Republicans nominate McCain, the Conservative wing of the Kansas Republican party might be offended, but there is the possibility that the more Moderate wing might hold together for the National election, even as it disavows the the State candidates.

This being the case, the Democratic party shouldn't assume the State will go Democratic without some attention. If, as is expected, McCain gets the nomination, and is forced to choose a Conservative running mate, such as Huckabee, then Kansas will be ripe for the taking by the Democratic party candidate.