The Continuing Decline of the Radical Right

Hutchinson News Online

Tony Perkins and his Family Research Council PAC lost another couple in Kansas, of all places:

The Kansas Traditional Republican Majority questioned the links former U.S. Rep. Jim Ryun and Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline had to a socially conservative group, the Family Research Council Action.

The moderate group claimed the FRCA's executive director, Tony Perkins, had once collaborated with a member of the Ku Klux Klan while running a Louisiana political campaign in 1996. Perkins and the council have denied the charges.

Still, the FRCA had endorsed Ryun and hosted Kline at a conference, said Ryan Wright, the moderate group's executive director. The pair, who both lost Tuesday, should have explained themselves, he argued.

That pesky link between Perkins and David Duke just won't go away.

in 2002, Perkins embarked on a campaign to avenge his mentor's defeat by running for the US Senate himself. But Perkins was dogged with questions about his involvement with David Duke. Perkins issued a flat denial that he had ever had anything to do with Duke, and he denounced him for good measure. Unfortunately, Perkins's signature was on the document authorizing the purchase of Duke's list. Perkins's dalliance with the racist Council of Conservative Citizens in the run-up to his campaign also illuminates the seamy underside of his political associations. Despite endorsements from James Dobson and a host of prominent CNP members, Perkins was not even the leading Republican in the senatorial race.