Races To Watch: Kansans on the Cusp

Nov. 6, 2006 — -- It was strange.

The political rally on the steps of the Kansas State Capitol building included lots of country music, including the ubiquitous strains of Lee Greenwood. There were plenty of American flags and a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. Speaker after speaker welcomed Republicans. The rally had all the hallmarks of a typical GOP election event.

Except this was a Democratic Party rally -- a rally specifically for Nancy Boyda, the Democratic Party challenger to veteran Republican Rep. Jim Ryun in Kansas' 2nd Congressional District.

It gets stranger. Boyda, it turns out, was a lifelong Republican until three years ago, when she concluded that the Kansas Republican Party had become too reactionary, too beholden to the religious right. Boyda's defection signaled a GOP at war with itself. Nine other former Republicans, including the onetime state chairman of the party, are running in the Kansas midterm elections as Democrats, just like Boyda is.

When Boyda ran against Ryun in 2004, she was defeated by 15 percentage points. But her campaign then was heavily dependent on funding and direction from the Democratic National Committee. This time around, she decided to eschew the official party help -- the funding, the fliers and the ads -- and run a grass roots campaign light on party affiliation.

She told us it has worked, and that she has polling that shows the race as very close; some polls even have her leading.

"This does not surprise me. We had anticipated this possibility, so this is nothing new," Ryun said.

Boyda said she believes people are "ready for a change."

"The nation and Kansas are in a very, very different frame of mind than they were two years ago," she said.

"I think the Republican Party has lost touch with the American people," she added. "They don't get it."

And she thinks the main issue on voters' minds is how we could have "this much mismanagement in Iraq."

"It's not just the war," Ryun said. "It's everything that's going on. It's hard to pinpoint what it is exactly."

Others have less difficulty. They say Ryun's voting record may play a role. He's voted with the White House about 90 percent of the time. Great when the president is popular, but not so great when he is not.

About 1,000 supporters were on hand Sunday afternoon at Boyda's rally, at the same time that the Kansas City Chiefs were on television beating the St. Louis Rams.

"She couldn't have gotten this crowd two years ago," said Bob Beatty, a professor in Washburn University's political science department. "What's changed is more frustration over Iraq and more frustration with the Congress not getting things done."