To the editor:

If you are a Republican, remember this moment. Not for the rise of Obama or even the surge of the Democrats. No, remember this moment as the start of the reformation of the Republican Party. These last few years have been so painful for moderate Republicans as to drive them to the courthouse to change their status to Unaffiliated, or farther, Democrat.

The people who have always believed in fiscal conservatism. The people who believe in made in America, instead of made somewhere else at 50 cents an hour. The people who are a little uncomfortable with mixing church and state. The people who are genuinely embarrassed with the corporate greed gone crazy, and the hypocrisy. These people are going to vote and shock the Republican Party, and it’s going to be humbling.

The division between the conservatives and the moderates in Kansas has been huge. The struggle for dominance has sometimes been rancorous. This is the new model for the rest of the country. The Republican Party has lost its way, and this is the beginning of finding its way back. In the future, they are going to have to return to their roots if they are to survive.

Prune away those pushing social agendas, religious agendas and the sort. Return to the tenets of fiscal responsibility. No more borrow and spend. It has been said by better than me before, but it can’t be said any better. “I didn’t leave the Republican Party; the Republican Party left me.”

Rex Russell,
Lawrence