What Works in Kansas

Back in 2004, Thomas Frank's book, What's the Matter with Kansas?, was all the rage among liberals. One theme of the book was that Kansans tended to vote in ways that were not in their own best interests. The implication of the title was that it was their fault. Maybe it was.

 So when Kansans recently voted overwhelmingly to block an amendment to the state constitution that would allow banning all abortions, it was a shock still reverberating around the talk shows.

This article from the Washington Monthly tells how the local campaigners against the amendment chose to speak to voters in the context of the voters' own value systems, rather than that of the bi-coastal progressives. It worked. The article has links to the television ads they ran, which are very instructive. If you do nothing else with this, at least watch the ads.

After decades of scorning and neglecting "fly-over country", hopefully the Democratic Party can actually learn a lesson from this. It's very slow learning curve so far has resulted in the Supreme Court we have now.