Kansas Lt. Gov. reprises star turn

DENVER - The speaker that arguably received the best audience reaction at the State Democratic Party Convention was a little-known elected official from a state far away from and with very little in common with Washington.

His name was Mark Parkinson, the lieutenant governor of Kansas, and he wowed the crowd last June with his story of turning from a ranking Republican state legislator into the Democratic right hand man to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.  But it wasn't the changes that he went through, Parkinson said, it was the changes the Republican Party went through.

Parkinson decided not to give the same speech this time around, but in the same self-deprecating manner peppered with stories of nobody knowing who he was, the Kansan implored Washingtonians to make history, not watch it.

His intention was to make clear that, after watching so many speeches in Denver, the delegates needed to remain on the offense, or else the history they are watching will wind up in the hands of their opponents.

"If we just sit back and witness history we will lose," Parkinson said. "We don't need to witness history we need to go out and make history."

He said the main challenges America faced were climate change, an unwieldy budget deficit, a lack of sufficient access to health care and racial inequality about which he said, "in many respects we are worse off now than we were 20-30 years ago," citing the great income and education disparity among the races.

"These problems cannot be fixed with band-aids," Parkinson said, and noted that Barack Obama has the potential to have big changes.

"After tonight you got back to the state of Washington and we're not going to witness a damn thing. We are going to work our tails off and make history."

FOR FULL CONVENTION COVERAGE from PolitickerWA.com click here.