Paul Ryan on his way to town to drum up money for Sam Brownback

Is Sam Brownback feeling the heat with an announced competitor in a gubernatorial election still more than a year away and a groundswell of discontent within his own party?

Or is the Kansas governor looking to pile-drive his way to a second term by securing the largest margin of victory possible, the same way Richard Nixon pounded George McGovern into the sand in 1972?

Neither possibility is clear at this point in time, but Brownback has a Republican heavy-hitter in Paul Ryan on his way to Kansas tomorrow to host fundraisers for the incumbent’s re-election campaign.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports that Wisconsin Congressman Ryan, Mitt Romney’s running mate and a figure whose appeal grows stronger the farther one goes to the right on the political spectrum, is scheduled to appear in Wichita at the Petroleum Club on Wednesday, followed by a visit to a private residence in Mission Hills. Ryan worked as an aide to Brownback when he was in the Senate. Only a fat checkbook will get you into either event; it costs between $2,000 and $15,000 to get in the door.

Brownback is the presumptive favorite to win Kansas in 2014 for second term as governor, but he does face some political headwinds.

Some of his opposition grows from within his own party. The Huffington Post’s John Celock reports that a group of 60 moderate Republicans in Kansas have formed Traditional Republicans for Common Sense, which seeks to put more centrist Republicans back in Topeka after many of them were purged from office by conservative GOP candidates in 2012. Among those is former Senate president Steve Morris, who told Celock that the group wants to defeat Brownback with a moderate Republican challenger, or a Democrat if necessary.

That Democrat would be Paul Davis, a Lawrence representative who has announced that he will take on Brownback next year. Former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, now the Secretary of Health and Human Services in Barack Obama’s cabinet, came to Mission Hills last week to help Davis get started on a steep climb to the governor’s mansion in Topeka.