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Miller had been Sheriff of Sedgwick County (Wichita) and ran on a strong law & order platform. He became so popular that he managed to carry every county in KS as Attorney General in 1972, even as McGovern lost every county (so it was a big surprise when he lost narrowly in 1974).

Of course, up until the 1970s, it wasn’t unusual to still have some center-right people in the Dems (even populist right).

As for Finney, she had been a Republican even as late as 1972 when she ran for Congress in the 2nd district (the seat was held by abortionist Dr. Bill Roy), but she lost the primary to a man, Charles McAtee. She was disillusioned with the party because of the establishment acting utterly cold towards her candidacy, rather than seeing she was a future star and grooming her as such (and she didn’t lack for experience, having spent 16 years both in DC and Topeka as an assistant to Sen. Frank Carlson).

Since the Dems were doing well statewide at the time, and still welcoming of center-right people, she made the jump and landed in statewide office in 1974 as Treasurer and served 16 years. With weak RINO “Moderate” Gov. Mike Hayden running for reelection in 1990, she jumped into the race for Governor and very narrowly edged former Gov. John Carlin (1979-87) in the primary (with Gore supporter loon Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps coming in 3rd) and won the November race with just 48.6% (Independent Republican Christina Campbell-Cline took 9%, depriving Hayden of a win, though disgruntled Conservatives likely would’ve voted for Finney).

Finney was, from what I gathered, urged out of the race for reelection in 1994, ultimately being succeeded by the pro-abort RINO Bill Graves (who was the first RINO to be reelected in decades). Her last hurrah was running in the 1996 Senate race for the Dole vacancy, but lost the Dem primary badly (losing 74-26%) to left-winger Jill Docking (with Docking, in turn, losing to Sam Brownback).