Like Kansas?

by | May 10, 2015 | NC Politics, NCGOP

Kansas has been cited as a cautionary tale for North Carolina. And Tar Heel conservatives are indeed pursuing ideas that have led the Sunflower State astray. These shared policy experiences didn’t come out of nowhere.  They’re rooted in the histories of the two states’ Republican parties.

Unlike in North Carolina, Republican dominance is in Kansas’ DNA. The state originated via the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which said Popular Sovereignty would decide whether slaves were permitted in those territories. The referendum degenerated into a years’-long conflict called “Bleeding Kansas.” Abolitionist Jayhawkers ultimately won out, and the Party of Lincoln gained an enduring primacy in the state.

As time passed, Sunflower politics emerged as a contest between Eisenhower Republicans and another cohort anchored by the Religious Right. The factions clashed repeatedly. Business Republicans usually came out on top, but the wingnuts were indefatigable. Over time, their greater passion won them control of the state’s GOP. Then Sam Brownback was elected governor, and the rest is very depressing history.

Our GOP’s roots are shallower; nevertheless, the same dynamic steered the party’s development. Governors Holshouser and Martin led a moderate group against Jesse Helms’s New Right warriors. The moderates’ days, though, were numbered. As in Kansas, disciplined and aggressive reactionaries overthrew the business types, remaking the GOP in their ideologically extreme image. Then Berger, Tillis and McCrory gained control, and the rest is–you guessed it–very depressing history.

Alas, here the stories diverge. Last year, Kansas’ business Republicans started fighting back. A group of fiscal conservatives founded Traditional Republicans for Common Sense, devoted to restoring the influence of pragmatists within their party. I refuse to believe execs are untroubled by the NCGOP’s excesses. But so far, they are missing in action.

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