Last week, Kansas Democrats met in Topeka to celebrate Tom Holland, presumptive Democratic nominee for governor.

Based on activist Twitter feeds, Facebook posts, and other clips of quasi-news I've collected, the Holland campaign's slogan ought to be: "Hey, I'm Not Sam Brownback."

Apparently nobody thinks we need to know who Holland is or what he stands for, the fact he's not Sam Brownback should be enough.

I don't think that's going to work.

In case you didn't know

Revenues are in and once again, February numbers are down.

For months now, state spending has had to be slashed because of declining revenues. And theLegislature continues to fiddle while Rome burns. It's gone from appalling to just plain sad in Topeka. I've made my ideas public, but the state Legislature seems to be absolutely paralyzed.

I don't like taxes, none of us do. Don't want them? Get some other ideas. But it's time to get creative, Kansas. Whatcha got?

Poll position

We're getting closer to the primaries, even though they're six months away. A SurveyUSA poll last week showed that here in the first district, Jim Barnett and Undecided are sharing a lead at 23 percent of the vote. In other words, there's plenty still to shake out in this race.

If anyone ought to be sweating right now, it's Tim Huelskamp, who has actively touted his frontrunner status from the beginning but trails Barnett in the poll by 7 percent. Despite most of the effort in the campaign seeming to go to getting more pro-life group endorsements than the others, self-identified pro-life voters are as undecided as everybody else. It's strange to see a quarter of the pro-life respondents undecided still.

Women rule

The key group to target in this election seems clear to me in this poll: women. Women are mostly undecided, and are the largest category who would prefer someone other than the declared candidates. The candidate who earns women's' vote will probably win the primary.

Chapman Rackaway is an associate professor of political science at Fort Hays State University.