The Democratic Party has way more to offer rural Kansas than the GOP. Why it’s failing

Kansas Democrats — we have a messaging problem.

Let us walk through some recent events.

On Oct. 7, Wichita suffered a significant infrastructure failure: For about 36 hours, Kansas’ largest city lost access to safe drinking water; 47,000 students could not attend classes the following Friday. Several small businesses had to shut down. The impact of critical infrastructure failure was felt in many ways.

In July of this year, the Kansas Reflector’s Allison Kite reported that Kansas had 5,446 lead pipes per 100,000 residents: “Children who are exposed to lead can suffer damage to their brains and nervous systems. Exposure is also linked to learning disabilities, shorter height, hearing loss and harm to their blood cells. Adults can develop cardiovascular diseases, and their reproductive systems and kidneys can be impacted.”

Water issues are not new to Wichita. In 2019, the Wichita Eagle reported that then-Mayor Jeff Longwell steered a $524 million dollar contract to his political supporters and friends. The group — Wichita Water Partners — was also blamed for the Flint, Michigan, water crisis. As a result of a major ethics violation and betrayal of public trust, Longwell lost reelection to Brandon Whipple.

You might be asking, “What does this have to do with the Kansas Democrats?”

Everything.

Instead of having strong, effective messaging around how the Build Back Better plan would help with our infrastructure woes, the Kansas Democratic Party put nothing out about the water main break in Wichita. Nothing about the lead pipes in Kansas. Even nothing about Longwell’s water scandal. Absolutely nothing.

Instead of building the case that we need to invest in our infrastructure, the Kansas Democratic Party is sitting on the sidelines. Instead of using real, tangible examples of how crumbling infrastructure is affecting us, the Kansas Democratic Party simply just puts out ineffective posts with news links.