Two gladiators in the culture war

BY: Steve Rose, Publisher

Steve Rose, Publisher

Sam Brownback boldly went where we didn’t think he would go in our offices last week, when asked if he was interested in running for Kansas governor in 2010.

“Yes, I would be interested,” responded the U.S. senator who has announced he will not run for re-election for the Senate after his second term expires in two years. This has been rumored for months. But I had not heard Brownback virtually announce it.

His drop-by visit was part of a 105-county tour of Kansas, which pretty much nails his intentions.

Of course, this knocks out any wannabe Republican candidate for governor. And it also rattles the political world by potentially setting up a fierce gubernatorial race.

Republican Sam Brownback vs. Democrat Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson, should Parkinson decide to run, would be a modern-day thriller. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is term-limited.

Both candidates hold strong views, which are opposite on almost every issue. And both are quite controversial.

Brownback has created an uproar with many hard-liners who view Brownback as too weak-kneed on the illegal immigration issue. Brownback embraced the McCain/Bush path-to-citizenship?amnesty? reform. That position killed Brownback in his bid for president in the Iowa Primary and could hurt him in Kansas. (Even Brownback’s Web site can be read en espanol.)

Brownback was way out of step with fellow conservatives of his party in Kansas when he endorsed John McCain for president in the Kansas caucuses. Mike Huckabee’s landslide victory was embarrassing to the senator. This doesn’t mean conservatives wouldn’t back Brownback against a Democrat, but in terms of passion and fundraising, Brownback may have lost some of his luster.

A little malaise in the Brownback camp certainly offers no free pass to Mark Parkinson, who has his own skeletons to deal with.

As a former chairman of the Kansas Republican Party, who switched sides to become a Democrat, Parkinson is held in disdain by some who charge he is a traitor and an opportunist. Parkinson counters that accusation, saying the party left him by becoming too conservative. Still, there is a cloud.

And Parkinson has been a leading opponent of the construction of two coal-fired electrical plants proposed for western Kansas. Unless there is a compromise, Parkinson can write off support out west. Even if there is a compromise, there will be hard feelings in that part of the state.

Conventional wisdom might conclude that Sam Brownback has a lock, because he is a Republican in a Republican state.

Yet, in the last 50 years, Kansans have elected five Democratic governors. The current governor, Democrat Kathleen Sebelius, is very popular, which can only help Parkinson.

In the end, it probably will not be issues like education, economic growth or taxes that will determine the outcome. Nor will it be intelligence or personality. On these qualities, it is a tie.

What it would come down to are the huge differences on social issues. No politician holds deeper convictions on bedrock social positions, such as abortion, gay rights, embryonic stem cells, and other Christian conservative causes than Sam Brownback.

Mark Parkinson, on the other hand, left the Republican Party precisely because he disagrees strongly on those very core issues

Two able gladiators would go at it in the highly charged Kansas culture war.

Who would prevail? In a state that has simultaneously elected Sam Brownback and Kathleen Sebelius, two polar opposites, it is anybody’s guess.