Former State Treasurer and former House Minority Leader Dennis McKinney of Greensburg declined a nomination to become the Kansas Democratic Party's new chairman. But he made some pointed remarks to the party's state committee about how the party has treated rural parts of the state.

Topeka ? The Kansas Democratic Party elected an entirely new leadership team Saturday during its annual Washington Days state convention in Topeka. But the soul-searching continued into what went wrong in the 2014 elections, and how the party should regroup in advance of 2016.

Nowhere was that more evident than in the election of a new chairman. Larry Meeker, an economist from Johnson County and the favorite among Democratic elected officials, won by acclamation, but not before some disgruntled members of the party tried to put up an alternative, former State Treasurer and former House Minority Leader Dennis McKinney of Greensburg.

McKinney declined the nomination, but at the same time made some pointed remarks about what many have considered the Democratic Party’s disregard for the rural western and southeastern parts of the state.

“If your great-grandparents came to this country to work in the mines, and they were dirt poor, and they were part of the early labor movement in Kansas that helped us to be one of the first states with unemployment compensation and workers’ compensation and workplace safety rules,” McKinney said, “and then one day you wake up and your town is described as a ‘craphole’ small town, you have to understand why we’re not connecting with the people and culture of Kansas.”

McKinney was referring to an online comment made during the campaign by Dakota Loomis, the party’s communications director who was fired soon afterward.

But for many in the party, that comment was just one example of how the Democratic Party has focused too much on the five major urban counties and not enough on western and southeast Kansas.

Paul Davis of Lawrence, the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for governor in 2014, visits with friends and supporters during a reception at the Kansas Democratic Party's annual Washington Days convention in Topeka.

“We’ve got to be there,” Meeker said after the state committee meeting. “You begin the party just like the Republicans do. It’s shoe leather on the ground. … You shake hands. You go door to door. You get people interested.”

Meeker replaces Joan Wagnon, who did not seek another term as party chairwoman.

Although Democrat Paul Davis had been leading in most public opinion polls, even in the final days leading up to the election, he ended up carrying only seven counties: Crawford, Douglas, Jefferson, Lyon, Riley, Shawnee and Wyandotte. And he was competitive in the state’s two largest counties, Sedgwick and Johnson.

But he lost the statewide race by a margin of 50-46 percent, largely because of Republican Sam Brownback’s wide margins of victory in most of the other 98 counties.

“The party has to figure out how to not get crushed in the west and the southeast,” said Chris Reeves, a state committee member from Johnson County. “The biggest goal of the party is to make sure we’re not getting blown out in these places.”

Reeves said one key is to broaden the party’s message beyond support for public education, which has been the party’s primary focus since Kathleen Sebelius first ran for governor in 2002.

“We’ve got to figure out a way to talk about bread-and-butter issues,” he said. “People care about education when they have kids in school. But young voters who are out of school don’t care so much. Older voters look at schools and say, these kids have iPads and computers. I didn’t have that stuff. How bad can school really be?”

Meeker also said the Democratic Party needs to talk more about economic issues.

“The come-on line for Republicans is smaller government and lower taxes,” Meeker said. “And what’s the come-on line for the Democrats, very simply? I think at this point we have an opportunity to capture what is normally Republican territory: sound economics; good job policy; good growth in the economy.”

But while party delegates debated whether the losses of 2014 were the result of a flawed strategy or a flawed message, Davis, who spoke at the party’s fundraising banquet Saturday night, said he doesn’t believe it was either.

“When you’re in a red state, and you have an incumbent president who happens to be unpopular, the climb is pretty steep,” Davis said during an interview at a reception before the banquet.

“There was a tremendous number of resources that came into the state,” he said. “We were out-gunned from a money standpoint by a very large margin, resources like I’ve never seen before that came in for (U.S. Sen.) Pat Roberts that really drove Republican turnout. Those are the things that I think made 2014 a tough year.”

Saturday’s banquet was one of the few public appearances Davis has made in Kansas since the election. He said he is now focused on his law practice in Lawrence and has no plans to run for another office.