The LA Times is reporting on the fracturing of the Kansas GOP amid defections from the Republican party to the Democrats and a growing dissatisfaction among voters for the wedge issues.

Parkinson became the third Republican politician in the last nine months to startle this red state by switching to the minority party. The other two are targeting GOP incumbents in the attorney general's office and in the state House of Representatives.

Political observers say the fracture within the Kansas GOP may foreshadow the future for the national party. The division between moderates and social conservatives is expected to define the contest for the party's 2008 presidential nomination.

Kansas has been at the forefront of the culture wars that helped the Republican Party gain national dominance this decade. Twice in the last seven years, its Board of Education voted to teach alternatives to evolution in public schools. Voters in 2005 overwhelmingly approved a ban on gay marriage. The state's attorney general last year subpoenaed medical records of abortion patients.

"A lot of people in Kansas are feeling lost right now," said Parkinson, 48, who was invited onto the ticket by popular Democratic incumbent Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. "I decided I'd rather spend time building great universities than wondering if Charles Darwin was right."

That's great news, but it's not what drew my attention about the article. It's entitled, "In Kansas, a Troubling Fissure for GOP."

I just couldn't help wondering which Republican's fissure would be so vexing for an entire state's political party and how they found out about it, then I realized, oh, they're talking about a political disagreement. Duh.