Kansas could turn blue

Just as I got done wondering exactly what drugs makes Republicans concoct things like the "American Values Agenda," a tiny sproutling of good news emerges from, of all places, Kansas.

Seems the Republican State Chair for Kansas, Mark Parkinson, is a newly minted Democrat. Why? He's sick of a preachy, ineffective government that pays more attention to what you think than delivering value for citizens

His defection to the Democrats sent shockwaves through a state deeply associated with the national Republican cause and the evangelical conservatives at its base. Nor was it just Parkinson's leave-taking that left Republicans spluttering with rage and talking of betrayal. It was that as he left Parkinson lambasted his former party's obsession with conservative and religious issues such as gay marriage, evolution and abortion.

Sitting in his headquarters, the new Democrat is sticking to his guns. Republicans in Kansas, he says, have let down their own people. 'They were fixated on ideological issues that really don't matter to people's everyday lives. What matters is improving schools and creating jobs,' he said. 'I got tired of the theological debate over whether Charles Darwin was right.'

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What's the matter with Kansas, indeed. Gimmee some of that juice.