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More on Johnson County

By tfk on October 6, 2006.

Via Tony, we get Steve Rose explaining why Johnson County is turning Democratic:

in the 56 years we have been publishing in Johnson County, this basically has been a Republican newspaper … I can name on two hands over a half century the number of Democrats we have endorsed for public office.

This year, we will do something different. …

But I could not help but put in perspective a more global phenomenon that has led us to re-evaluate our traditional support for Republicans …The Republican Party has changed, and it has changed monumentally … To win a Republican primary, the candidate must move to the right.

What does to-the-right mean?

It means anti-public education, though claiming to support it.

It means weak support of our universities, while praising them.

It means anti-stem cell research.

It means ridiculing global warming.

It means gay bashing. Not so much gay marriage, but just bashing gays.

It means immigrant bashing. I'm talking about the viciousness.

It means putting religion in public schools. Not just prayer.

It means mocking evolution and claiming it is not science.

It means denigrating even abstinence-based sex education.

But everything else adds up to priorities that have nothing to do with the Republican Party I once knew. …

And now you know why we have been forced to move left.

That's why John Bacon should be afraid of the coming election, and Jim Ryun, too. Kansas is getting fed up.

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Policy and Politics

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