Topeka ? Republicans disaffected with the power wielded within their party by abortion opponents and religious conservatives often complain that they no longer belong to the party of Abraham Lincoln.

Truth is, Republican infighting is perfectly in keeping with Lincoln’s party. As president during the Civil War, he was titular head of a coalition of people whose opposition to slavery varied in intensity, as well as Unionist Democrats and former Whigs whose party had dissolved around them in the 1850s.

In Kansas, GOP feuding started with Lincolnites and Radicals and continued with conservatives against Bull Moosers, Ike Likers and eventually the modern Mod Squad.

The latest sign of turmoil is what happened only a few days after Rep. Jerry Moran decided to drop out of the 2006 governor’s race. Moran was considered the GOP’s great unifying hope, and once he was out, prominent Republicans of different philosophical stripes became interested.

What has developed is the early jockeying in Kansas politics’ silly season. Like the silly season in NASCAR racing, there’s a lot of talk about who will stay in, who will fall out and who will get to trade paint with Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius next year.

“It would be smart not to have a heated primary,” said state GOP Chairman Tim Shallenburger, who survived a tough primary in 2002, only to lose to Sebelius in the fall.

Sebelius has said she won’t announce her plans until next year, but political activists in both parties treat her re-election bid as an underlying condition, like gravity.

Since Moran’s departure from the governor’s race at the end of April, four prominent Republicans have expressed interest: State Treasurer Lynn Jenkins, House Speaker Doug Mays, Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt and Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh.

Jenkins, Schmidt and Thornburgh come from the moderate wing of the party where Bill Graves found his strongest allies as the governor before Sebelius. Mays wouldn’t be speaker — or on the list of potential candidates for governor — without conservatives’ backing.

Shallenburger said he hoped prominent Republicans who are interested in running will winnow the field themselves, before a potentially nasty primary campaign begins.

His experience in 2002 is good reason for him to want such a development.

His primary victory depleted his campaign funds. By the time he started his television advertising, Sebelius had used such ads to firmly establish an image as a common-sense, penny-pinching manager and reach voters with a pro-business, pro-education message.

Sebelius won by wooing moderates unhappy over Shallenburger’s primary victory. She’ll need GOP votes to win a second term in this Republican-dominated state.

Shallenburger complained repeatedly during the 2002 campaign that he couldn’t convince voters that Sebelius was a liberal Democrat — even when his ads cited votes from her record as a Kansas House member in 1987-94.

Furthermore, whatever their philosophical differences, the potential GOP candidates appear to have agreed on the message for trying to unseat Sebelius.

Jenkins spelled it out recently: “She’s a liberal Democrat and hasn’t worked well with the Republican majorities in the House and Senate.”

This year’s legislative session saw partisan tensions increase. Republicans pushed through a package to increase education funding $142 million annually with virtually no help from Democrats. Having watched her proposal to raise taxes to boost aid to schools fail last year, Sebelius didn’t propose a new plan.

Republicans rejected her plan to reorganize the state’s health care bureaucracy in favor of one of their own. Her veto of a bill imposing additional regulations was sustained in the House by fewer votes than a veto of similar legislation was in 2003.

“The longer the session went on, the more frustrated Republicans were with the governor,” Shallenburger said. “She inspired some people so that they wanted to run.”

Republicans think Sebelius is vulnerable for proposing higher taxes to help schools and expand state health coverage for needy Kansans.

Democrats believe the governor still has a deep reservoir of support. As for proposing higher taxes, they contend Kansans are willing to put more money into schools and want the state to address health care problems.

“Anybody would have a tough time beating Kathleen Sebelius right now,” said Rep. Tom Sawyer, of Wichita, a former state Democratic Party chairman and his party’s unsuccessful nominee against Graves in 1998. “People are behind what she’s doing.”

Republicans, of course, will argue Sawyer’s point during the fall campaign next year. But they’ve got to settle on the driver of their car for the race, and that requires getting through the silly season first.