There’s no doubt about it: Kansas is a Republican state. Just look at the latest statewide voter registration numbers: 455,000 Democrats and 783,000 Republicans.

With such an overwhelming majority in the state, it would seem a simple thing to elect a Republican governor, and yet, Kansas Republicans failed in 2002 to accomplish that goal and may be well on the way to a second failure in 2006.

The problem is that the Republican Party in Kansas really isn’t, philosophically, a single party. Dissension between conservative and moderate Republicans has made it difficult to get full party backing for any Republican candidate. Announcements this week that three potential front-runners for the GOP gubernatorial nomination next year — U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran, U.S. Rep. Jim Ryun and Kansas Atty. Gen. Phill Kline — will not run has once again left Kansas Republicans in the hunt for a candidate who can unite the party.

Kansas House Speaker Doug Mays has said he may run, and Kansas Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt wouldn’t rule out a bid for the governor’s office when he visited the Journal-World this week. He may not be running, but it was clear from some of the analysis he offered that he has given the race some serious thought.

What are Kansas Republicans looking for in a candidate? Schmidt’s quick answer was “a Jerry Moran who’s willing to take the risk and make the run.” Moran is the perfect choice because he is well-liked in the conservative western part of the state, but also is attractive to moderate voters.

But, of course, Moran isn’t running. So where does that leave the Republicans? “The most influential faction in the Republican primary is the conservative faction,” Schmidt acknowledged, but the party shouldn’t pick someone too conservative. What the Republicans need, Schmidt said, is “someone who can survive the primary and still be enough of a centrist to win back those GOP voters who crossed party lines to vote for Sebelius.”

Can the moderate and conservative factions of the Kansas Republican Party unite behind a single candidate? Like any good Republican would, Schmidt said he thought they could. He said he’s sensing a desire among party members to unite rather than engaging, as they have in the past, in a “circular firing squad,” in which they fired on one another. Recent races for the Kansas 3rd District congressional seat offer the perfect example of how sharp divisions within the GOP virtually hand election victories to the Democratic candidate despite Johnson County’s overwhelming Republican majority.

Schmidt says he has noted a growing awareness among Republicans that “the majority is better.” Reminded that the current strong Republican majority in both houses of the Kansas Legislature had been unable to present a united front on many issues, Schmidt smiled but stuck by his assessment: “I do believe what the Republicans need for a victory is to have a candidate in the center of the party … .”

He’s probably right, but who is that candidate? Who is the Republican with sufficient stature and visibility who can straddle the party’s deep divisions, appealing both to conservatives and moderates? It’s a task that many of the state’s best known and most politically savvy Republicans obviously aren’t willing to take on. The election is still a year and a half away, but that seems like little enough time to try to establish the kind of unity Kansas Republicans will need to reclaim the governor’s office.