It is possible to be too extreme or incompetent for any particular US state. Kansas is the most R state in the Union that has no large Mormon population and is in no way Southern... and yet its incumbent Governor can go too far to the Right.
Kansas politics has long been a contest between factions within the Republican Party... and the Hard Right has overpowered the Dole/Kassebaum wing and begun to act with consummate arrogance.
If the Dole/Kassebaum wing splits off from the GOP, then it might find itself a new home -- the Democratic Party. The GOP could win landslides so long as it still got the "Rockefeller Republicans"... but once they came to dislike the racists and Bible-thumpers who took over the GOP they found themselves welcome in the Democratic Party.
Um no Kansas is not the reddest state in the union: that's Wyoming(without the Mormon factor.)
Don't forget Kathleen Sebelius was the Governor before Brownback so Kansas has had a Dem Governor recently.
Dude the Rockefellers are long gone and have been for at least since the second half of the 70's as a prominent wing in the Republican Party. Granted there was still some in the party when Reagan was President. I count Connie Morella(R-MD) as the last Rockefeller Republican in Congress.
Brownback is in deep trouble when you are down 2 points and you are the incumbent and its only February you have got problems. Brownback was a good US Senator but made too much of a right hand turn once he got the Governors job. Voters in Kansas thinks he doesn't fund the schools enough and his tax plan voters don't like.
