Are people angry in Johnson County about deposed Attorney General Phill Kline's election to be their district attorney? Oh yeah.
Boo Tyson, executive director of the the Johnson County MAINstream Coalition, explains how her organization feels about Kline being put into office by the votes of 316 ultra-conservative GOP activists.
In a statement, released Wednesday afternoon, Tyson notes:
A nonpartisan, grassroots organization, the coalition reports that it was founded in Johnson County in 1993 to fight extremist attempts to undermine Constitutional freedoms and the separation of church and state.The MAINstream Coalition is disappointed in and shocked by the vote of the Johnson County Republican Party precinct committee leaders to elect Phill Kline as the new County District Attorney. This decision ignored the will of the moderate voters of Johnson County, who sent an overwhelming message to Kline on November 7th. It is just one more example of the radical right's willingness to ignore the perspectives of anyone who disagrees with them, even if they are members of their own party. As we have seen on a national level, this kind of "stay the course" thinking is both short-sighted and disrespectful.
Mr. Kline was also never officially announced as a candidate prior to this election. While there were rumors of his candidacy, the lack of a formal announcement is yet another reflection of an obvious lack of regard for the electoral process. One of the reasons the MAINstream Coalition was founded was to oppose "stealth candidates" who attempt to fool the electorate. In this case, Mr. Kline apparently wanted to fool his own party members.
The MAINstream Coalition welcomes voters-and potential voters-of any political party or affiliation to join us in our nonpartisan, moderate approach to stand against the "blinders on" approach used so often by the Far Right. We continue to work to protect and defend religious liberty and public education-fighting for democracy and freedom. While this vote may have been legal, it does nothing to promote democracy or honor voters. In fact, it insults both.
In This Moment explains how Kansas' recently ousted attorney general became the new DA of the state's most populous county.
9 comments:
The MAINstream Coalition is a far-left group heavily dominated by Democrats. When it formed a Douglas County branch, its president and moderate candidate to head the county's GOP in 1998, Craig Templeton, later decided to disband the group because it, in his words, "turned out to be heavily weighted to the left--too many Democrats for my taste."
Of course, this organization of ultraliberals opposes Kline as DA. They would have been unhappy with anyone to the right of Ellen Laner.
I would be much more interested in hearing your discussion of Boo Tyson's arguments, then in seeing one more attack. Simply claiming that a group is "far-left" and therefore bad/wrong/evil is useless.
Why not discuss Tyson's points? Refute them. Don't just point and say "bad people."
Diane:
You're kidding, right!
There was no substance in Boo's (!) message. It was no more than one personal attack after another.
As I noted above, a true moderate Republican, Craig Templeton, disbanded the Douglas County chapter of the MAINstream Coalition after he determined that it "turned out to be heavily weighted to the left--too many Democrats for my taste."
The group is far-left AND it does advocate positions that are wrong and out of the mainstream in Kansas.
We also have to consider why Tiller's Toady ran as a Democrat, i.e., because he did not believe he could beat Kline in a primary contest. Monday's vote merely shows that conservatives dominate in Johnson County and Kansas as a whole. A majority of Kline's party elected Kline as JoCo DA. What do you lefties have against democracy?
Hi folks, this is Boo Tyson from MAINstream. I think the ANONYMOUS writer may be correct in the assessment that in 1998 (which is 6 year old history), Douglas County MAINstream members may have been more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. I don't know because I wasn't at MAINstream then.
I do know that the almost 400 people we drew to our Take Back Kansas rally in Lawrence were of all political stripes. One of the things the far right can never seem to "get" about MAINstream is that we don't track our members' political identities. And, we don't all agree on everything--that's part of the point!
We educate, agitate, organize and mobilize people who are concerned about the threat to American democracy posed by those who promote their brand of what often sounds like "Christian patriotism" as the one true ideology that must be followed. Whatever label used, you know who we are talking about. They deny the separation of church/state or religion/government, they promote using public dollars for private education, and call the United States a "Christian nation."
People who join MAINstream tend to vote because of candidates rather than parties. This is not to say that we don't attract active partisans, but our members understand that our role as an organization does not include strengthening or hurting either major party. We work outside partisan structures in order to stay independent minded and free to work for a person rather than a party.
We do have a political action committee, called MAIN*PAC, and its bylaws require one Republican co-chair and one Democratic co-chair. Our PAC Board is the only place in our organization where party really matters.
Another point of import to the discussion: We are headquartered in Johnson County. We may tend to attract more Democrats in Douglas, but in Johnson County, our founders and supporters include many moderate Republicans. We also are now attracting Unaffiliated voters from across Kansas and welcome them to the table as well.
I invite you to take a look at us: www.mainstreamcoalition.com and www.mainpac.org. We're growing--attracting moderate voters of all stripes--and working hard to defend public education and religious liberty, as well as promoting democracy and freedom.
Diane, thanks for posting our statement and for the blog. And, to you anonymous, thanks for presenting this specific opportunity for discussion.
Boo
Boo:
If, as you claim, MAINstream does not track your members' "political identities," how do you know those in attendance at the Take Back Kansas rally (held at a church, BTW) were of all political stripes?
Boo here again.
Come on, anonymous, you could figure this out without me. It's simple really: people tell me!
What can I say? We attract political junkies. We talk politics early and often! In the course of discussion, I learn much about people's political identities.
BTW, we're not afraid or hostile to churches. This is another misconception about MAINstream. Historically, congregations have used their facilities for community events and we are not opposed to such usage. It is the attempt to turn congregations into de facto political action committees that violates the IRS regulations.
Boo:
So your group advocates for the separation of church and state, yet you held a campaign rally in a church in Lawrence and allowed Morrison supporters to hand out fundraising literature? You state that you're not against churches. Apparently, you're just against certain types of churches.
You cannot or would not provide a list of those in attendance at the rally in Lawrence, but I am certain such a list would be heavily dominated by faculty from KU's Department of Social Welfare (e.g., Forrest Swall, Alice Lieberman, etc.) Few, if any, truly moderate Republicans were there.
You have to appreciate the irony of the MAINstream Coalition, which is far to the left of the Kansas mainstream, organizing a rally to encourage Kansans to take the state back to the middle. It's like David Duke trying to convince Iran's leaders to tolerate Israel.
Boo - Thanks so much for posting and explaining more about the coalition. I've only recently had a chance to meet some of the people in the coalition, but I have always been impressed by them. I have enormous respect for The Rev. Bob Meneilly, one of your founders.
Anonymous - Once again, you hide your identity. Once again, you miss the point. For my taste, the people of the MAINstream Coalition are sometimes too moderate.
As the Religious Right likes to remind us, separating church and state doesn't mean that churches can't be held for meetings or that religious people can't be involved in politics, or do you plan to argue against that?
Diane:
"For my taste, the people of the MAINstream Coalition are sometimes too moderate."
My guess is that you would even find Carol Sader "too moderate" even though she is far left of center in Kansas. Sader has been a leader in the MAINstream Coalition for at least a decade and her views are pretty much in line with the majority in the MAINstream Coalition.
Even former Gov. Bill Graves, a moderate, knew that Sader is a liberal. He's what he said in 1994: "Congressman Slattery's running mate, Rep. Carol Sader, has one of the most liberal voting records in the state Legislature,
and only moved to Kansas in the 1970s."
When even a moderate calls someone "liberal," you know they're out of the mainstream.
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