Posted on 05/29/2003 2:55:29 PM PDT by Republican Wildcat
KEEPING GOP AT BAY WILL REQUIRE FINESSE
FRANKFORT - Kentucky's Democratic ticket enters the fall campaign doing something it hasn't done in a generation. It's running scared.
Republicans have a ticket that seems formidable for the most part. At the top are squeaky clean Ernie Fletcher and Steve Pence, thumping the drum for change after eight consecutive Democratic administrations.
It is not just the governorship that Republicans covet and have been denied for more than 30 years. Not one of the undercard offices (attorney general, auditor, agriculture commissioner, treasurer or secretary of state) has been won by a Republican since 1967.
But now the Republicans are emboldened, and Democrats hear footsteps. Not only do voters feel obvious ambivalence about the Democrats, the Democratic candidates have a message problem as well.
After 32 years in power, persuading voters to keep them in power for 36 years is going to require some finesse. Witness state Treasurer Jonathan Miller, the only constitutional officeholder eligible to run for re-election this year.
Miller said at a Democratic "unity rally" last week that the November election will "decide not only what happens over the next four years but over the next four decades."
Asked to elaborate, Miller said: "If Republicans win the governor's mansion, we're going to see a one-party dominance. Prospects of that would be very bad for Kentucky and very bad for our children's future."
That invites obvious questions about all the years of Democratic party dominance, when Democrats year in and year out held the governorship, the General Assembly, both U.S. Senate seats and most of Kentucky's U.S. House seats, and why Republican dominance would be worse.
Miller allowed that "the Democratic Party might not be the party for every state in this country. But in a state like Kentucky, where more families are in lower and middle incomes, this should be a Democratic state."
The GOP likely would argue that having a lot of poor families is all the more reason for change.
The Democratic message apparently will be that Democrats are the party of working families and that Fletcher, the 6th District congressman, has nothing of substance to offer if he wins the governorship.
Fletcher's Democratic opponent, Ben Chandler, said his party must establish "a theme of helping people: the average citizen, the average Kentucky family. This is the message we're going to get out this fall."
The Democratic rally included tough talk about working hard at the grass-roots level and of being "energized" for November. It even included talk of being underdogs, something that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago.
"These Republicans don't know Democrats," said Moretta Bosley, the party chairwoman. "They underestimate us, and that's fine. I like being underestimated."
http://www.grayson2003.com
http://www.greenwellforauditor.com
http://www.adamkoenigfortreasurer.com
http://www.fletcher2003.com
http://www.richiefarmer.com
The State has been trending away from this pattern in recent years...we've now got 7 out of 8 members of our Congressional delegation as GOP and have control of the State Senate 22-16 after being in the single digits just 10 years ago (the House, unfortunately, is still overwhelmingly Democrat controlled 65-35).
Kentucky is going through what the rest of the nation has been experiencing. Since 1994, the GOP had picked up 7 seats in the Senate (from 44-56 to 51-48-1), 51 seates in the House (from to 178-256-1 to 229-205-1), and the Oval Office. The GOP controlled all 3 Houses for only 6 of the past 74 years, and the Dems for 33, including the 103rd Congress (1993-1995, Clinton's first years). Clinton's legacy has been to make the nation RACE to the Right. Here's to Kentucky joining in the run!
Forgot to add that the only other major changes in the make-up of Congress in the 20th Century were due to the Depression (the GOP went from leading 300-132-3 in 1923 to 89-333 in 1937) and WWII (the Dems went from leading 333-89-13 in 1939 to 188-246-1 in 1947). Clinton's megalomania had THAT kind of affect on America!
(I LOVE a good almanac!)
That's misunderestimated to you.
I don't know this race in particular, but I can make a national generalization:
Watch the precinct turnout! The Democrats are so scared that I predict we will see turnouts that are mathematically impossible because the fraud machine will be in overdrive. They've been edging closer and closer to the line in recent elections (look at Johnson/Thune, for example). I won't be surprised to see greater than 100% turnout in precincts where Democrats "squeak" by in the early hours of the morning.
-PJ
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