The Washington Post started the month with another in what seems to be a series of stories proclaiming electoral doom for Republicans. This was the front-page headline: “Kansas’s blue hope: In a deep-red state ruled by Koch money, buoyed Democrats toil to flip seats one yard sale at a time.” Let’s leave aside the interesting question of whether the state of Kansas is, in fact, “ruled by Koch money”—Koch Industries may be headquartered in Wichita, but the Post offered no evidence the company somehow “rules” the state. No, what intrigued us was the headline’s promise that a red-to-blue revolution is coming.
The front-page photograph featured three women, political activists all, celebrating a purchase at a Democratic fundraising yard sale. On the jump-page were photos of a few other women at the same yard sale. If this is a groundswell, where is everybody?
One might ask the same question after reading the article. The congressional district in question is the one Mike Pompeo represented before he left the House to become Trump’s CIA director. So, what happened in the special election to fill the seat? Did the district turn from red to blue? No. The Republican won—albeit with less than the percentage Trump enjoyed there in November. And how about the Democratic activists featured in the Post article? Two had themselves run for state legislative office—and lost by wide margins. Even the yard sale was something of a bust: In the reporter’s account, a surprising number of customers declined to buy anything when they learned proceeds were going to the local Democratic party.
None of this tells us anything new, of course: Republicans and Democrats remain antagonistic in Kansas as elsewhere; and for political activists of all stripes, hope springs eternal.
Yet what, exactly, is the purpose of heralding on the front page that Kansas is being turned “blue” by flipping seats “one yard sale at a time” when no seats have flipped, Kansas evidently remains deep red, and even the story’s evocative news-peg—the yard sale—is a flop?
