Topeka ? Fractured by internal strife and battered by a few big losses in last year’s elections, Kansas Republicans prepared to pick a new state chairman who’s supposed to bring the GOP back from a low ebb.

Hundreds of party activists gathered Friday in Topeka for the start of the GOP’s annual statewide Kansas Day convention. With its traditional dominance of Kansas politics, the Republican Party schedules its festivities for the weekend closest to the Jan. 29 anniversary of the state’s admission to the Union in 1861.

But Republicans were feeling anything but dominant. Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius convincingly won a second term last year, and two high-profile defectors, Mark Parkinson and Paul Morrison, won statewide office. And of late the Democratic Party has proven itself far more adept at raising money for its state and federal operations.

Sebelius successfully exploited the animosity between the party’s conservative and moderate wings in her bid for re-election, just as she did in 2002. Their continued feuding also creates opportunities for her to pass legislative initiatives.

Healing such divisions and boosting fundraising are the major tasks facing the new chairman, who will be elected Saturday by the GOP’s state committee. Chairman Tim Shallenburger, a former state treasurer and House speaker, is stepping down after serving a single two-year term.

Three contenders

Three candidates are seeking to replace him: state Sen. Tim Huelskamp, of Fowler; Mike Pompeo, a Wichita businessman; and Kris Kobach, of Kansas City, Kan., a University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor and the 2004 nominee in the 3rd Congressional District. None are considered moderates, but some Republicans view Pompeo as the least objectionable candidate to that wing.

“The Republican Party needs some leadership that is able to work with all of the factions and is accepted by all of the factions,” said Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, of Independence.

Conflict within the GOP isn’t confined to Kansas, nor is it new to the Sunflower State, where the fighting preceded even the split between conservatives and Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose group in 1912.

But divisions elsewhere are not as severe as they are in Kansas, said Paul Weyrich, chief executive officer of the conservative, Washington-based Free Congress Foundation.

“I think the party is not in very good shape, because it doesn’t have its act together, and they cannot make a credible case that we’re coming back in ’08,” he said of Kansas’ GOP.

Dole dominance

Weyrich dates the bitterness to the 1996 contest for the Senate seat held by Bob Dole, who resigned to run for president. Conservative Sam Brownback bested moderate Sheila Frahm, picked by Gov. Bill Graves to fill the vacancy.

Schmidt said: “For so long, Bob Dole was such a dominant figure for Kansas Republicans. Just as the Cold War was able to back-burner a lot of regional conflicts, Dole’s dominance was able to back-burner a lot of these other fights.”

Conservative control

For now, there’s little doubt among Republicans over who controls the outcome of the chairman’s race.

“The conservative element controls all the ropes,” said Dennis Jones, a Lakin attorney who was chairman in 2003-05 but didn’t seek a second term after angering conservatives. “They control all the shots.”

If voter registration were the only measurement, there’d be no question how the Republican Party is faring. About 761,000 Kansas voters are registered as Republicans, or about 46 percent of the 1.6 million total. That compares to 438,000 Democrats, who account for about 27 percent of the total.

But Republicans fight so bitterly over issues such as abortion, stem cell research and education funding that legislators and political scientists often describe Kansas as having three parties: conservative GOP, moderate GOP and Democratic.

Morrison unseated conservative stalwart Phill Kline in the attorney general’s race. Parkinson was state GOP chairman when Sebelius ran for governor in 2002 but was on her ticket as lieutenant governor last year. Also, Democrat Nancy Boyda unseated five-term GOP Rep. Jim Ryun in the 2nd Congressional District.

On his Web site, Kobach calls such losses “devastating” and “humiliating.”

“The Kansas Republican Party needs an overhaul,” he said in announcing his bid earlier this month.

Money woes

The Kansas GOP’s problems appear to be deeper than last year’s election losses. The party raised $1.2 million for its state and federal accounts in 2005 and 2006, but Kansas Democrats raised 3 1/2 times that amount, about $4 million.

All three candidates are promising to attack the fundraising disparity and improve the party organization.

“We’ve done a very poor job of organizing, doing voter ID, turning out our votes, getting out our message,” Huelskamp said in an interview. “In many areas, the Democrats just beat us at the game on organization.”

Pompeo said Republicans already have a winning message – stressing the need for free markets and individual responsibility and describing government as the solution of last resort.

“I think our party needed to do more to communicate its message here in Kansas,” Pompeo said. “I think it is a fundamentally conservative Republican state.”