“It looks like our prayer was answered,” Mr. Gietzen advised The New York Times. “We would have liked to have done this a different way, though. Now we have thousands of people bad-mouthing us, refusing to donate, telling us our website incited this.”
Mr. Gietzen was born on Feb. 9, 1954, and grew up in Glen Ullin, N.D., a tiny metropolis close to Bismarck. His father was concerned within the state’s fledgling anti-abortion motion.
He served within the Marines and, within the late Seventies, earned an affiliate diploma in aviation upkeep from the Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology in Tulsa, Okla. Soon after that, he moved to Wichita to work for Boeing.
He was a frequent unsuccessful candidate in native elections, together with for mayor of Wichita.
He was the one dad or mum of three kids. Information about survivors was not instantly out there.
The 2004 e-book, “What’s the Matter With Kansas?,” which examined the rise of populist conservatism within the state, depicted Mr. Gietzen as an emblem of a few of the forces driving previously liberal Americans to repudiate the Democratic Party.
“Gietzen was building a social movement, one convert at a time,” the creator, Thomas Frank, wrote. “On the left it is common to hear descriptions of the backlash as a strictly top-down affair in which Republican spellbinders rally a demographically shrinking sector of the population for one last, tired drive. What the Wichita Republicans have accomplished, though, should dispel this myth forever. They shouted their fighting creed to every resident of the city, sharpening the differences, polarizing the electorate, letting everyone know the stakes.”
Mr. Frank continued: “Gietzen and company wanted not only Wichita’s votes but its participation. They were going to change the world.”
Source: www.nytimes.com