Thomas Frank: Obama Should Find His Inner Kansan

For a different perspective, I decided to make my way to the Democratic convention in Denver by driving for two days across Kansas, one of the reddest states of them all. Kansas is my state: I grew up in its suburbs; I went to its public schools; I like to think I absorbed its values, and that I remain true to them even though Kansas and I have parted ways politically.

Let me explain what I mean by relating a conversation I had on Saturday in the distinctly blue-collar city of Wichita, a lovable but slightly down-at-the-heels place that will probably never get to host the convention of a national political party. The man I talked to was state legislator Dale Swenson, who was swept into the statehouse in 1995 by one of the many Republican waves to crash over the heartland over the past few decades.