. . . were politically blue

. . . in a state that is so traditionally red that there should be another color designation for it. . . somewhere beyond red. As I am reminded at times, by people who don't live here, I live in a place where the state school board decided that evolution wasn't science. A few years ago, we could not buy liquor by-the-drink; we had to join "private clubs" and bring our own bottles if we wanted to enjoy a cocktail with our dinner. Our attorney general at the time even made airlines quit serving alcoholic beverages in the air space over Kansas. Not long ago, we had an attorney general whose main goal was single-handedly overturn Roe v. Wade; his crazy antics got him ousted two years ago by the district attorney for the county I live in, who switched from the GOP to the Dems in order to run against the crazy AG. Tit-for-tat, the crazy element of the GOP in this county appointed the defeated former AG as the district attorney. After a year, the new AG quit in a sex scandal. The the nutty DA was defeated in the primary this year, and hopefully he will now go away. Fun and games in the reddest of states. . .


And I live in what could probably be considered the reddest district of the reddest of all states. This district is only 20 minutes away from Lawrence, home of the University of Kansas and probably the most liberal area in the entire state; and it is probably another 20 minutes from Wyandotte County, home of Kansas City, Kansas, a primarily blue-color and minority bastion that can usually be counted on to vote anti- anything Johnson County votes for. And I live another 20 minutes from the Kansas-Missouri state line. Missouri used to be strongly blue, but it isn't any more. Except for this weekend, when 75,000 people showed up to see Sen. Obama at the Liberty Memorial.

My district's state representative used to be Kay O'Connor, who was famous for saying that she didn't believe it was necessary for women to have the right to vote. She reminded me of Dana Carvey's tight-assed Church Lady on SNL, and she even look a bit like Dana Carvey dressed in his Church Lady get-up. She finally resigned her post, and her replacement, while being not as offensive generally and keeping a low profile, is of the same political philosophy as Kay.


And yet, our two-term governor, Kathleen Sebelius, is a Democrat; so is my US representative, Dennis Moore. In Kansas, most political races are decided in the Republican primaries, and it is almost always a balancing act between the traditional Republicans and the right-wing extremists of that party. When the traditional Republicans fall asleep at the wheel, the right-wingers come in and take over for a couple of years or a term or two until they make themselves look so foolish that everyone else gets up in arms and pays attention to that particular race and the righ-wingers get voted out.


Every political map you see on TV has this red stripe right down the middle of the country, from North Dakota through Texas, and we are smack dab in the middle of the middle. I know that McCain will win in Kansas. He doesn't bother to even campaign here, it's a lock. That means all Kansas electoral votes will go to McCain. I don't even need to vote, it won't matter a bit. My vote will be wasted. BUT I am very blue in this sea of red and I will vote. In fact, everyone I know will vote. It's going to be big, isn't it? But most of all, it just needs to be over. Done. Ended. Somebody needs to be in charge. But I understand that there are lawsuits ready to be filed the minute the election is over. It is a possibility that we won't know who the President is until January. . . just what this country needs, right?