Kansas Democratic Party Chairman Larry Meeker has resigned, according to party sources. Meeker, a former Mayor of Lake Quivira was named party chair at the yearly Washington Days organizing event in Topeka earlier in the year. Throughout the year, the party has faced internal conflicts over the direction that it would mount for the future; a division between a populist-progressive message vs. a plan the continued appeal to moderate Republicans that so far has resulted in 6 years of continuous losses in the state house.
After an interview with the Pitch, a Kansas City alternative paper, in which Chairman Meeker highlighted that Kansas Democrats "are" red state Democrats, it isn't a matter of branding "we are more conservative than other democrats", the problem was compounded by an interview in the Wichita Eagle.
Meeker said Kansas Democrats are more fiscally conservative than their peers in other states. “A Democrat in Kansas would qualify as a moderate Republican in California, Massachusetts,” he quipped. Many Kansas Democrats balked at the idea of being referred to as "California Republicans", and over the last 48 hours continued pressure has built from the donor base - largely liberal progressives - to call for apologies or recall.