Kansas Republicans overstated their case this week in trying to link Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to Howard Dean’s “extremist” agenda.

In a commentary on the Kansas Republican Party Web site this week, Chairman Tim Shallenburger said Dean was an early promoter of same-sex civil unions, a “notorious tax increaser” and too liberal on abortion.

Dean’s selection as Democratic leader, Shallenburger wrote, is something “Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius should be happy with, considering that Sebelius endorsed Howard Dean’s bid for the Presidency” during the 2004 primary race.

Derrick Sontag, executive director of the Kansas Republican Party, repeated the assertion Thursday in an interview with the Journal-World.

The only problem: Sebelius didn’t endorse Dean for president.

“She endorsed John Kerry for president,” Sebelius’ spokeswoman, Nicole Corcoran, said Thursday afternoon.

Asked about the conflicting stories, Sontag said he and Shallenburger had meant to say that Sebelius supported Dean’s selection as party leader.

“I’ll make sure that gets corrected right away” on the Web site, Sontag said.

But Corcoran responded that Sebelius never made an endorsement in the race for chair of the Democratic National Committee.

“She never got involved in that decision,” Corcoran said.

By early Thursday night, Shallenburger’s statement on the party’s Web site was amended to say that Kansans “do not share similar values with Governor Kathleen Sebelius and her political party.”