ShawneeDispatch.com

Party-hopping candidates in Kansas have caught the attention of the world and this week brought a French television crew to Shawnee.

Loick Berrou, correspondent for French station TF1, arrived in Shawnee Sunday with cameraman Renaud Villain to interview candidates in the 18th District Kansas House of Representatives race, as well as cover the races for attorney general and Kansas governor and lieutenant governor. All races have a former Republican running as a Democrat -- a concept almost unthinkable for the French.

In France, TF1 is like NBC, CBS and ABC all rolled into one -- it has the biggest audience in Europe. Berrou has been with the station for 20 years and spent six years as the American bureau chief in Washington, D.C. He said he got the idea to come to Kansas when he was asked to do a story about the elections in America for the network's news show, similar to "60 Minutes" or "Dateline."

Though he had several ideas of races he could cover, he heard about the Kansas races through stories published by the Washington Post and Salon.com, and he liked the idea of leaving the major U.S. cities with which Europeans are familiar.

"The common idea is that New York is the U.S., and as I am familiar with the U.S., I wanted to go deeper, into the Midwest," Berrou said, adding that the politics in Kansas provided a unique story. "First it gives us an idea on what real America is, and secondly it's a situation that is interesting to cover."

It is interesting, he said, because changing parties is something the French would never do. The French political system has its own right- and left-wing parties: the Union for a Popular Movement and Union for French Democracy on the right, and the French Socialist Party, French Communist Party and the newer Green party on the left.

While about 30 percent of the voters are "sway" voters and will vote for either party, there is no such thing as a sway politician.

"When you're a socialist, you're a socialist for life, and when you're a conservative, you're a conservative for life," Berrou said.

Berrou said in France, most people think the main political issue for America is the War in Iraq, so Kansas was also interesting because the war has not been a main issue in local races.

On Sunday, Berrou met with Cindy Neighbor and Mary Pilcher-Cook to discuss the party changes. The news story also will study the attorney general's race, in which Johnson County Dist. Atty. Paul Morrison is running as a Democrat, and the gubernatorial race, in which Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has been joined by Mark Parkinson, former owner of the Sweet Life assisted living facilities in Shawnee and the former chairman of the Kansas Republican Party.

Berrou was interested if the party changes in Kansas have been a reaction to politics on a national level, though Neighbor insisted that issues specific to Kansas spurred the changes. He said he came with no set notions about the reason for the party changes, but he wants to look into the statewide races as well.

"I don't know yet; that's why I'm in Topeka," Berrou said. "I'm trying to get the big picture of it... I don't come with a preconceived idea, so in Topeka I will see if Mr. Morrison or Mrs. Sebelius can give me an idea of what is going on."

The 18th District certainly has an interesting history. From 1992 to 2000, Atty. Gen. Phill Kline held the seat. When he left to run for the Third District U.S. Congressional seat, Neighbor and Pilcher-Cook ran for the Republican nomination to 18th District seat, and Pilcher-Cook won the primary and then the general elections.

Two years later, Neighbor ran against Pilcher-Cook again and this time won the primary and then the seat. But when the two faced each other again in 2004, Pilcher-Cook again triumphed in the primary and went on to take back the seat in the general election.

Neighbor said she knows that because of the history of primary face-offs for the Republican nomination, some see her as an opportunist, switching parties to face Pilcher Cook in the general election. But she said her choice was more philosophically motivated.

During her two years in the state House of Representatives, Neighbor said she saw what some political analysts describe, that there were two Republican parties in Kansas -- the moderates and the conservatives.

"And it's not all-inclusive, because if you don't agree with everything (the conservatives) do and say, you're not one of them," she said.

Neighbor said she saw some Republicans controlled by interest groups such as the Kansas Legislative Education and Research group, and name-calling among people in her own party.

So Neighbor says she became a Democrat because the Republican Party's platform held so many views she didn't agree with, especially concerning vouchers and charter schools in education, and because they wouldn't work with those within the party who had differing views.

"That's why I say I didn't leave the party; the party left me," she said.

Pilcher-Cook said it made sense that Neighbor would decide to run as a Democrat because her principles wer more aligned with Democratic ideas.

"I think she knew she couldn't get elected as a Republican," Pilcher Cook said. "Since her voting record reflects that she believes Johnson County tax dollars should go to the rest of the state of Kansas, it probably fits her ideology."

Berrou and Villain were to spend Tuesday and today gathering information in Topeka before heading back to France. The 13-minute segment will air Sunday on TF1.