Tag: KY-Gov

• AK-Sen: Lisa Murkowski, whose primary challenge from Some Dude got much more interesting when Sarah Palin endorsed said Dude (Joe Miller), won’t be able to count on appointed Gov. Sean Parnell’s explicit backing in the primary. When pressed on the issue at a gubernatorial debate last night, Parnell “visibly squirmed” before saying that he would support whoever wins the primary.

• LA-Sen: I hope your last few days are going better for you than David Vitter’s last few days: yesterday, he had to face a phalanx of reporters interested in the issue of Brent Furer’s continued presence on Vitter’s staff despite his criminal record. Vitter said that was old news, that Furer had been disciplined two years ago, and moreover that Furer hadn’t been assigned to handle women’s issues. Now it’s come out that several legislative guide books, in fact, do list Furer as Vitter’s point man on women’s issues. (TPM’s link has video of Vitter in front of reporters. Think back to the visuals of his post-prostitution-problem press conference, and note again that Vitter is using his wife literally as a human shield.)

• NV-Sen: Ah, Sharron Angle… the gift that just keeps on giving, day after day. Everyone is abuzz that she called the BP oil-spill escrow account a “slush fund,” apparently having learned nothing from Joe Barton getting raked over the coals for saying the same thing (to say nothing of the fact that she threw a dogwhistle reference to Saul Alinsky in there for her ultra-right-wing fans, completely apropos of nothing). After a brief firestorm, Angle is already walking back the “slush fund” comment. And “slush fund” wasn’t even the most outrageous Angle quote that came out today, as it was came out that when she successfully counseled a young girl impregnated after being raped by her father against getting an abortion, she referred to that as turning “a lemon situation into lemonade.” Well, if the GOP was thinking it was OK to let Sharron Angle out of whatever undisclosed bunker they’ve been keeping her in (and Rand Paul and Mark Kirk), it looks like it’s back to the bunker for a few more weeks.

• NY-Sen-B: David Malpass gave some clarification to his comments yesterday that he’d like to be on Carl Paladino’s Taxpayer’s line in November: he won’t seek the line if he isn’t also the GOP nominee, in order to not be a spoiler for the Republican candidate. Bad news for fans of cat fud.

• OH-Sen: Despite Lee Fisher’s fairly consistent if small lead in the polls in this race, there are almost nine million big reasons to be pessimistic about this race, and that’s Rob Portman’s war chest. Portman raised $2.6 million in the second quarter, leaving him with $8.8 million cash on hand.

• PA-Sen: Pat Toomey is out with five (5!) new TV ads, hammering on government spending. His camp says the ads will run “statewide” and for an “indefinite” period of time, but… and you can probably guess what I’m going to say next… no word on the size of the buy.

• GA-Gov: If John Oxendine can pull out a Republican primary victory despite his seeming slide in the polls, his money will have a lot to do with it: he raised $850K in the last two months and is currently sitting on $1.83 million CoH (tops among GOPers, but way behind Dem Roy Barnes’ $4 million). Meanwhile, Nathan Deal, sinking into 3rd place, has been brainstorming about what or who Republican base voters really seem to hate these days, and apparently he’s settled on immigrants, as he’s now loudly touting his plans to duplicate Arizona’s anti-illegal immigrant law in Georgia.

• KY-Gov: PPP takes an advance look at the Kentucky gubernatorial race in 2011, finding that incumbent Dem Steve Beshear (elected easily against hapless Ernie Fletcher in 2007) has a tough re-election fight ahead of him. Beshear (with 38/35 approval) leads Trey Grayson 41-38, but trails Agriculture Comm. Richie Farmer 40-39.

• SC-Gov: The South Carolina Chamber of Commerce is pointedly sticking with its endorsement of Democratic nominee Vincent Sheheen, despite some carping from its internal ranks that they should have endorsed Nikki Haley. The Chamber is framing the issue as that the Governor needs to actually cooperate with the (GOP-controlled) legislature to get things done, something that Mark Sanford didn’t do and that they don’t see Haley changing. The Haley campaign tried playing the TARP card against the Chamber, saying that they’re “a big fan of bailouts and corporate welfare.”

• TX-Gov: Despite increasing evidence of links between the Greens’ petition drive and the Texas GOP’s financial kingpins, the Texas Dems seem to sense they aren’t going to get any further on their efforts to kick the Greens off the ballot (having run into an obstacle in the form of the GOP-owned Texas Supreme Court). They dropped their challenge to the Greens staying on the ballot, which clears the way Green candidate Deb Shafto to appear on the gubernatorial ballot to give the shafto to Bill White. (They’re keeping the case alive at the district court level in an effort to get civil penalties imposed, though.)

• OH-03: I don’t know how many other states do this instead of allowing selection by party bosses, but Ohio is poised to have an unusual “special primary” in the 3rd, on Tuesday, July 13. This was brought about when Mark MacNealy, the Democratic nominee in the 3rd (to go against Republican incumbent Rep. Mike Turner), dropped out of the race post-primary. This race is on absolutely nobody’s radar (although it’s a swing district, so it could be interesting with a top-tier candidate), so I can’t say we’ll be burning the midnight oil liveblogging Tuesday’s contest.

• OH-12: This is a swing district (D+1) with a top-tier Democratic challenger, so the DCCC has been right to tout this as one of our few legitimate offense opportunities. This just may not be the right year, though, if a new internal poll for Rep. Pat Tiberi (from the ubiquitous POS) is to be believed: he leads Dem Franklin Co. Commisioner Paula Brooks by a gaudy 53-28 margin.

• WI-07: With Sean Duffy having reported strong fundraising numbers yesterday, it’s good to see that state Sen. Julie Lassa, who’s trying to hold this seat after David Obey’s late retirement announcement, is raking in the money too. She raised $310K in just six weeks.

• WV-01: After Mike Oliverio walked back his earlier statements from the primary where he was agnostic about voting for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker, it seems like Oliverio and the Democratic leadership have kissed and made up, sensing a good opportunity for a Democratic hold here. Steny Hoyer, Jim Clyburn, and Chris Van Hollen have all cut big checks for Oliverio (although, perhaps pointedly, Pelosi herself has not). Oliverio also announced having raised $300K just during the month of June. Given Alan Mollohan’s seeming allergy to fundraising, we may have given ourselves an electoral upgrade here (though definitely not an ideological one).

AZ-Sen: Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? J.D. Hayworth thinks so!

CT-Sen: Dave Weigel tweeters that Rob Simmons will “make statement on the future of his campaign” at 9am today. What could this mean? A) He’s getting married to Ginny Brown-Waite; B) he’s announcing endorsements from Nikolai Volkoff and the Iron Sheik; or C) he’s bailing out of the race in the face of Linda McMahon’s zillions of dollars and new party endorsement. The Connecticut Mirror says it’s option C. If so, that would pretty much just leave Paulist weirdo Peter Schiff in the mix against McMahon.

IA-Sen: Dem Roxanne Conlin has launched her first TV ad of the campaign, a biographical spot. Of course, no word on the size of the buy. I think Conlin will need to go sharply negative against Grassley if she wants to make a real dent in his poll numbers.

KS-Sen: Todd Tiahrt’s probably wondering what exactly he did wrong on the way to (probably) losing the Republican nomination: “Didn’t I out-teabag him my whole career?” I guess it doesn’t matter. SurveyUSA now has him down 52-29 to fellow Rep. Jerry Moran in the GOP primary. Two months ago he trailed “only” 42-32. The primary here isn’t until Aug. 3rd, but Tiahrt’s consistently crappy polling is going to make it hard for him to make the case that he can turn things around before then.

NV-Sen: Because we like to keep track of such things, we note that the Tea Party Express – the shady, consultant-backed apparatus that appears to be trading on the “Tea Party” name in order to drum up business – has already spent $300K on behalf of Sharron Angle in the GOP primary. If she pulls off an upset against Chicken Lady, the TPE will have a nice notch in its belt – and will probably be able to put the fear of god into a few Republican candidates here and there.

KY-Gov: Freshman Rep. Brett Guthrie says he won’t seek the Kentucky governor’s mansion in 2011, but didn’t rule out an eventual run some point in the future (he’s 46 years old).

OH-Gov: A group backed by the DGA and the American Federation of Teachers called “Building a Stronger Ohio” is going up with a $300K ad buy on behalf of Ted Strickland which is likely to hammer John Kasich some more. (You may recall that Strickland’s first ad out of the box blasted Kasich for his Wall Street ties.) Nathan Gonzales reports that this new group has $1.7 million in funding (so far), so more and bigger buys are probably on the way.

AL-05: Turncoat Parker Griffith just loaned his campaign $75K ahead of the June 1 primary, on top of $180K he loaned himself earlier.

HI-01: In light of Charles Djou’s 40% plurality win, his conservative record, and the fact that we’ll have a normal election in November, we’re moving this race back to Tossup status.

NC-08: Now that their attempt to create a third party in North Carolina has fizzled, SEIU is scaling back their plans. Instead, they are trying to recruit former Larry Kissell staffer and Iraq War vet Wendell Fant to challenge his old boss (who of course voted no on healthcare reform) as an independent.

PA-11: Some Dude Brian Kelly managed to score 17% in the Democratic primary against Paul Kanjorski, despite refusing all financial contributions. Now, he’s gone and endorsed Republican Lou Barletta. Kanjorski was in trouble anyway, but this certainly doesn’t help.

PA-12: Mark Critz’s impressive eight-point win, combined with the fact that he’ll get square off again in November against a guy he already beat soundly (Tim Burns), has us convinced that this race should be Lean D. It’s been a very long time since anyone won a special and then lost the subsequent rematch – Wisconsin Dem Peter Barca was the last to do so, in 1993/94. However, Barca won his special by just 675 votes, while Critz cruised by over 10,000.

VA-05: Saying he would “rather see Tom Perriello for two more years than the wrong conservative there for 20 years,” teabagger Jeffrey Clark says he’ll launch an independent bid if the hated Rob Hurt wins the GOP primary.

WI-07: Dem state Rep. Louis Molepske says he won’t challenge state Sen. Julie Lassa in the primary, more or less clearing the field for her. The picture on the GOP side is less clear, where state Rep. Jerry Petrowski is still considering a bid, even though Ashland DA Sean Duffy has been running for a while (and has some establishment support).

AR-Sen: While offering a commencement address at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Michelle Obama gave a shout-out to all the Democratic bigwigs sharing the dais with her: Gov. Mike Beebe, his wife Ginger, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Sen. Mark Pryor and even state AG Bobby Dustin McDaniel. Everyone, that is, except for Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who was also on stage. Stay classy, Michelle.

KS-Sen: The not-particularly pleasant GOP race to succeed Sam Brownback has gotten even uglier, with Rep. Todd Tiahrt accusing frontrunner Rep. Jerry Moran of pulling “a John Kerry” flip-flop on tax cuts. Moran, leading in the polls, has largely been sticking to a Rose Garden strategy and refusing to respond to Tiahrt’s provocations.

NV-Sen: Sue Lowden’s mom must have taught her as a child that if you pick at a scab repeatedly, it will heal faster. That can be the only explanation for Lowden’s newest TV ad, in which she brings up the damn chicken business yet again!

PA-Sen: Joe Sestak now has a four-point lead over Arlen Specter in Muhlenberg’s tracking poll, 46-42. A day earlier, Sestak took his first-ever lead in public polling in the tracker. Also, here’s a good observation: Specter voted against Elana Kagan when she was nominated to be Solicitor General. Now that it looks like she’s going to be tapped for the Supreme Court, he’ll have to very publicly flip-flop on this one barely a week before the primary.

UT-Sen: As you probably saw by now, longtime Utah Sen. Bob Bennett was denied renomination at the GOP convention this past Saturday. Instead, businessman Tim Bridgewater and attorney Mike Lee will duke it out in a June 22nd primary. Lee seems to be the teabagger fave, as he immediately garnered Jim DeMint’s endorsement once he made it past the third and final round of voting.

Meanwhile, Bennett is still holding out the possibility of waging a write-in campaign – which is not out of the question given that Utahns in general like him a lot more than Republican convention delegates. My understanding, though, is that he could only run as a write-in in the general election, not the primary.

Anyhow, while Bennett’s never self-funded before (so far as I know), he is actually extremely wealthy, with assets potentially in excess of $30 million. If turnout is about 600K voters and a Dem can get a third of that, then Bennett only needs 200K to win a squeaker. On the flipside, John Cornyn is pledging to support the GOP nominee, and in modern times, I think only Strom Thurmond has gotten elected to the Senate via write-in. But nevermind all that – do it, Bob… for America!

FL-Gov: Surely by now you’ve heard about anti-gay activist George Rekers’ European escapades with a young man he hired from a site called Rentboy. If not, read this now. The story just got a lot better, though, with word that Florida AG Bill McCollum once paid Rekers at least $60,000 to serve as an expert witness for the state’s attempt to ban gay adoptions. Rekers’ testimony was rejected by the judge as not credible, and the ban was found unconstitutional. All in a day’s work!

KY-Gov: Kentucky’s gubernatorial seat isn’t up until 2011, but a trio of media outlets commissioned a poll from Research 2000 nonetheless. It finds Gov. Steve Beshear leading House Speaker Greg Stumbo in a hypothetical primary, 55-28. In the general election, it shows Beshear up 44-37 over GOP Ag. Comm’r Richie Farmer. Beshear’s job approval is 46-43 and he has $1.9 million in the bank.

NY-Gov: Ordinarily, you need 25% of the weighted delegate vote at a state convention to qualify for the ballot in New York. But because Steve Levy is not yet a registered Republican, GOP rules require him to get 50%. It sounds, though, like there may be some movement afoot to more or less knock that requirement back down to 25%.

CT-05: Some Dude Kie Westby is dropping out of the crowded GOP race to take on Rep. Chris Murphy. Westby endorsed state Sen. Sam Caligiuri on his way out. Quite a few Republicans remain in this primary.

MD-04: State Del. Herman Taylor says he’s challenging Rep. Donna Edwards in the Democratic primary. It sounds like Taylor might be taking Edwards on from the right, saying she’s “out of touch with the business community” (those are the Maryland Gazette’s words, not necessarily his). Meanwhile, it sure sounds like Edwards herself has gone native: Despite the fact that she owes her seat to a primary challenge, she now says “it would be ‘very hard’ for her to support a primary challenger like herself,” according to The Nation. It never changes.

MI-09: Former state Rep. Rocky Raczkowski put out an internal poll showing him up 26-15 over businessman Paul Welday, with a whole lotta people undecided.

NY-23: Like some kind of Archie Comics love triangle involving Betty, Veronica, and Jughead, newcomer Matt Doheny is wooing the Club for Growth away from their former not-so-golden boy, Doug Hoffman. (The Club now says it’s “hard to say” whom they will endorse, if anyone.) Maybe toss in Moose, too, since the Conservative Party is making it extra-interesting by sticking with Hoffman.

PA-12: This ain’t good news for Team Blue: Dem Mark Critz reported having just $73K in the bank in his pre-election FEC report, while GOPer Tim Burns has $308K. I don’t feel too good about this one.

UT-02: In case you missed it, Dem Rep. Jim Matheson is being forced into his first-ever primary come June 22nd, thanks to the vote taken at the state’s Democratic convention this past weekend. Retired teacher Claudia Wright nabbed 45% of the delegates on Saturday, clearing the 40% hurdle to get her name on the primary ballot. The winner will take on ex-state Rep. Morgan Philpot, who has raised just $27K so far. Wright has raised $9K, while Matheson has taken in a million bucks and has $1.4 mil on hand.

WV-01: I was wondering when this was going to happen: The DCCC has finally sent some help to Rep. Alan Mollohan, who faces a stiff primary challenge from the right in the form of state Sen. Mike Oliverio. The election is tomorrow, though, so I wonder if, Coakley-style, this assistance is going to be too little, too late. While I carry no brief for Mollohan, he is almost certainly better than Oliverio, who is buddy-buddy with the state GOP.

Meanwhile, on the GOP side, the cat fud is flying fast and furious. Attorney Mac Warner says he won’t support ex-state Rep. David McKinley if he wins the nomination, claiming McKinley’s “gone way over the line in personal attacks and distortions of the truth.” (Welcome to politics, bub.) In general, the primary has been very negative, with much of the fire aimed at McKinley.

New Jersey: A New Jersey appellate court dinged Chris Christie’s attempt to unilaterally restrict campaign contributions by unions, saying that legislation would instead be required.

Polling: Tom Jensen, who has penned many dour but accurate notes about the rough shape Dems find themselves in this cycle, draws together some surprising threads and finds recent good polling news for Team Blue in five senate races.

Latest SUSA poll gives Breshear a 60-36 lead over Fletcher.  The question is will this looming landslide help the Democrats in legislative races? 

And it would be nice to take out Mitch McConnell next year.

Few people are paying attention to the 14 gubernatorial races that will be decided in the next 15 months (3 are happening this fall, and the 11 remaining are set for 2008). Yet, these contests will play a major role in deciding who holds control of Congress in the next decade: The governors who will be elected in those 14 states will hold control of redistricting after the next census, and each party wants to be ready for maximal gerrymandering in 2011.

With that in mind, let’s rank these races, from the most vulnerable to turnover to the one where the incumbent party feels the safest. It immediately appears that very few of these races are likely to be contested at all, especially the ones that will be decided in 2008. Democrats and Republicans will swap Louisiana and Kentucky this fall, and then fight in only  two-three states next year. A stark contrast to the 2006 cycle.

The first 3 races are listed after the jump. The full rankings and detailed descriptions of all 14 races is available here, on CampaignDiaries.com

• Likely Takeover

1. Kentucky (Gov. Fletcher)
The first of the 2007 races. Fletcher has been facing huge allegations of misconduct and has even been indicted. This pushed Anne Northup, a congresswoman defeated in 2006, to challenge him in the primary last spring, but Fletcher inexplicably survived. He is now almost assured of going down in this November’s election against Democrat Steve Beshear, who has led every opinion poll by an average 20%. Democrats are now running ads using Northup’s words against Fletcher. Count on Fletcher losing his executive immunity in less than two months.

2. Louisiana (Open)
The second of the 2007 races. Republican Bobby Jindal almost became Governor in 2003 but came short against Blanco, who chose earlier this year to not run for re-election given her low approval ratings post-Katrina. Jindal became a House member in 2004, and he now looks unstoppable. Louisiana has no primary system, and the first round will take place in late October. Democrats have fielded weak candidates, and their only hope is to hold Jindal under 50% to force him into a one-on-one runoff in early December, but they would have little chance even then. Louisiana is rapidly drifting Republican.

• Toss-up

3. Missouri (Gov. Blunt)
Blunt barely won his first term in 2004 against Democrat McKaskill, who since then became Senator. The 2008 campaign started almost immediately, as it became clear that AG Nixon intended to take Blunt on. The race has been nasty for months already. Given Nixon’s statewide recognition and Blunt’s unpopularity, Nixon might have the slightest of edges.

The rest of the rankings, and detailed descriptions of all 14 races, available here, on CampaignDiaries.com

[Crossposted @ DitchMitchKY.com]

When the Washington Times is running stories about Senator Mitch McConnell‘s extreme vulnerabilities in Kentucky, you know the buzz on him is not good inside the Beltway.

Take a look at the comments in this article by Larry Forgy, a Lexington lawyer and former Republican gubernatorial candidate who came within a hair of being elected governor in 1995.  He’s adopting a very Pat Buchanan-esque populist Republican message.  I think he’s taking the possibility of a run against McConnell very seriously.  What does he have to lose?  The McConnell branch of the Kentucky GOP already hates him, and the Fletcher and Nunn branches of the party would rally around him (and thus Forgy would have a ready and energized base).  He’d humiliate McConnell in the process by at least taking 30 percent of the votes (hell, you’d better believe I’d switch my registration to Republican to vote against McConnell in a primary), and in a perfect storm the little bugger might actually win that primary.

McConnell’s unspectacular performance under the national spotlight shone on him in his capacity as Senate Minority Leader has only brought Washington elites to question whether McConnell’s deficiencies aren’t also largely to blame for the severe problems now rocking the Kentucky GOP that he fathered.

McConnell’s sort of a Senate equivalent of Karl Rove: mostly blow and very little substance.  For the better part of a decade now, there’s been a cult around McConnell in Republican circles in Kentucky and Washington.  He’s revered for his supposed tactical mastery of procedure and narrative, ruthless partisanship, and money-grubbing ability.

Yet, once the Kentucky GOP that Mitch built became pretty much the only show in town, McConnell’s mean and massive machine started to sputter, fast and hard.  It all fell apart in scandal, amateurishness, and incompetence. 

McConnell quickly cast the blame on the nascent Fletcher wing of the party, but it was McConnell who handpicked his minions. 

I’ve said it many times before: even if Mitch McConnell somehow survives reelection in 2008, he will nevertheless inherit the legacy that he rightly deserves (and that’s not a good thing for McConnell).  History will record that he was feckless and ineffective as a leader, that he was instrumental in bringing the corrupting culture of money-grubbing and influence-mongering to our nation’s capital, and that he cultivated the hyper-partisan atmosphere there that has totally paralyzed our institutions of government at a time when the American people most need them to be providing answers and solutions.

McConnell’s base of support erodes

August 20, 2007

By Ralph Z. Hallow – Sen. Mitch McConnell’s close backing of President Bush on immigration and the Iraq war is costing him support among Kentucky Republicans, and, according to some party members, hurting his chances for re-election next year.

He even could face a primary challenge from former Republican gubernatorial candidate Larry Forgy, who contends that Mr. McConnell’s in-state problems are compounded by job losses to producers beyond America’s borders.

“The average Kentuckian feels we are giving away this country with both hands – jobs are going, essentially the primacy of the people who made this country great is going, and Mitch McConnell is lumped with the Washington types on this,” Mr. Forgy said.

“And the war in Iraq is less troublesome in Kentucky than in many other places, but it is not popular here, and Republican voters see Mitch’s views as too close to the president’s on the war,” said Mr. Forgy, a Lexington lawyer.

It’s a troublesome assessment for Mr. McConnell, who as minority leader has found himself having to defend unpopular Bush administration policies.

“The immigration issue is trouble for everyone in central Kentucky,” Republican state Sen. Tom Buford said. “The Iraq war is always difficult for all incumbents, even if they support pulling the troops out. It is a no-win situation when elections are at risk.”

Mr. McConnell registered a 48 percent approval rating last month in a SurveyUSA poll.

A county party chairman who supports Mr. McConnell but asked not to be identified said Mr. McConnell’s re-election next year is uncertain – despite the Capitol Hill clout he brings Kentucky – unless he shows the folks back home he understands their distrust of Washington on enforcing immigration laws.

The chairman said he has tried to tell Mr. McConnell that he needs to assure the party’s base that he opposes Mr. Bush’s immigration bill.

The Kentucky Republican Party, torn by the immigration issue, was further fractured when critics claimed Mr. McConnell had acted behind the scenes to back an ultimately unsuccessful primary challenge by former Rep. Anne Northup against Gov. Ernie Fletcher earlier this year. The Fletcher faction of the state Republican Party is backing the “draft Forgy” campaign.

Despite his role as Republican leader in the Senate, Mr. McConnell withdrew himself from much of the fight among fellow Republican senators over the Bush-backed immigration bill supported by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, and Arizona’s Republican senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl, among others. Besides border-enforcement provisions, the bill provided a path to citizenship for illegal aliens and a new worker program for foreign workers.

Constituent pressure began to peel other Senate Republicans from their support of the bill, and Mr. McConnell wound up voting against it, though he voted for a similar bill last year.

“His vote against the bill at the end showed his thinking and that he knew the bill was not going to be good policy for Kentucky or the country,” said Fred Karem, a Lexington businessman who went to law school with Mr. McConnell.

Mr. Karem said it’s impossible for him to imagine Mr. McConnell facing re-election difficulty. “Shortly into his new term after he is re-elected next year, Mitch will be the longest-serving U.S. senator in Kentucky history. He has been the heart and soul and leader of the Republican Party in this state,” he said.

Republican leaders in the state agree that immigration is a big issue with the party’s core voters, but some say it won’t hurt Mr. McConnell.

“I don’t know anyone who is more in touch with his constituency than Mitch McConnell,” said Jack Richardson of Louisville, party chairman in Jefferson County, the state’s most populous county and home to Mr. McConnell.

Mr. McConnell recently acknowledged grass-roots discontent over immigration.

“During the immigration debate, and ever since, countless well-informed Americans spoke up about the need to enforce our borders and our laws,” he said. “Their voice was heard in the Capitol and the White House. The billions we’ve added to the homeland security funding bill for border security and interior enforcement, and the administration’s enhanced commitment to cracking down on illegal immigration are necessary steps toward securing our nation – and living up to the expectations of our constituents.”

Another McConnell supporter, Bourbon County Chairman Andre Regard, said, “I would be surprised if McConnell faces a challenge because of immigration. I think we should give everyone amnesty and start over.”

Other party leaders in the state privately made it clear that supporting Mr. McConnell is important because of the benefits he brings Kentucky through his seniority – he is completing his fourth term – and as the Republican leader in the Senate.

Ballard County party Chairman Charley Martin said: “I know immigration is a very emotional issue with Republicans, but it’s not the fundamental issue. The party wants to continue the conservative views of Senator McConnell – the views he stood for through the years.”

[Crossposted @ DitchMitchKY.com]

With all the tragedy as of late in our nation’s coalmines and with Kentucky’s Senator Mitch McConnell and his wife Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao at the center of a web of money-grubbing and influence-mongering in Washington that has left these many coalmines the deathtraps that they are for the sake of the almighty campaign contribution and a few ticks on the profit margin, I think the analogy of Kentucky’s gubernatorial election this year being the GOP’s canary in a coalmine is a fitting one.

Watch this latest video from Jim Pence of DitchMitchKY and the HillbillyReport.  What’s going on in the video with security personnel at the Kentucky State Fair trying to end an anti-war protest (until they’re set straight by the State Police) is fascinating enough, but what’s even more fascinating is what’s going on in the background: all those cars honking in support of the protest.

Recall that thirteen years ago in 1994, on the cusp of the so-called Republican Revolution, Kentucky served the Democrats in a similar capacity.  Then the death in March of that year of Democratic Congressman William H. Natcher (KY-02)-who had represented the district since 1953 and who continues to hold the all-time record for consecutive votes in Congress at 18,401-set up a special election for the seat.

I was only 17 years old at the time, but I had been politically aware since the 1988 presidential campaign, when a longtime Democratic activist in my church started hauling me to rallies, the biggest of those being Democratic vice presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen‘s appearance at the Big Tobacco warehouse in Owensboro, today the largest city in the Second District.  I don’t remember anything about the substance of what was said there, but I remember the energy, the pomp, and the confidence among the Democrats gathered.

Yet, a mere six years later the entire region of the Second District was seething against the political establishment and its status quo, its distance, and indifference.  That establishment was Democratic. 

Perhaps that environment is best encapsulated in a scene that has now been immortalized in Michael Moore‘s latest film SiCKO.  On August 29, 1994, at a rally in Owensboro, “Tobacco Rights Activists” burned an effigy of then First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in protest of President Bill Clinton‘s health care plan.  With a bluegrass band playing the back ground, Stan Arachikavitz, president of the Kentucky Association of Tobacco Supporters, chanted “burn, baby, burn,” as the effigy was doused in gasoline and two women set it ablaze.  When asked for comment by a reporter, Arachikavitz replied, “Hillary didn’t last as long as my Marlboro.”  The nation was outraged, but there was a quiet satisfaction among many across western Kentucky.

At that rally was Ron Lewis, the Second District’s newly elected Republican congressman.  In what had been a shock to Kentucky’s political establishment-if no-one else-Lewis had defeated longtime Kentucky State Senator Joe Prather in the May special election to succeed Natcher.  Lewis had won with 55 percent of the vote on a turnout of less than 20 percent.  A fundamentalist Christian, Baptist minister, and religious bookstore owner, Lewis had been recruited to the race by Senator Mitch McConnell, who had been narrowly elected to his own seat ten years earlier in 1984 on the coattails of Ronald Reagan. 

You may recalled that Lewis’s campaign commercials in the special election had famously morphed Prather’s head into that of Bill Clinton, who was then near the height of his unpopularity.  The national GOP considered the technique a success and went on to use it widely in the general election that year.  Meanwhile, rumors had circulated in the district that Joe Prather was in Washington to look for a house.  Perhaps it was just a rumor spread by the McConnell machine, but it might as well have been true, such was the arrogance and sense of entitlement of Kentucky Democrats of the day.

McConnell went on to recruit Republican Ed Whitfield-who had just as much personal dynamism as Lewis-to run in the First Congressional District in the fall.  Both Lewis and Whitfield won; Whitfield became the first Republican ever elected to the First District.

My point with all this is that the political establishment in Kentucky at that time-conservative Southern Democrats-was a bloated and opaque bubble.  Its bloated-ness allowed the good old boys to make room for more of their own inside and its opaqueness kept their less-than-altruistic dealings hidden from the masses, but those very same qualities kept the good old boys from witnessing the trouble that was brewing for them on the outside–in the real world. 

Mitch McConnell burst their bubble.

Unfortunately, the Kentucky Republican Party that Mitch McConnell replaced the good old boy Democrats with was a political machine that set about inflaming the ugliest elements of Kentucky’s own culture: its racism, its bigotry, its sexism, its churlishness, its phobias, and its anti-intellectualism. 

The thing to remember about Mitch McConnell (and this is something that his fellow Republicans in the U.S. Senate are discovering now about him in his capacity as Minority Leader) is that McConnell always has McConnell’s interests first.  He’s not at all concerned about the long-term consequences of his tactics and actions on the people of Kentucky.  What he’s counting on is that Kentuckians and the state’s chattering class will never fully digest the disaster that was McConnell’s Senate career so long as there’s plenty of pork named after him spread around the state.

Mitch McConnell took Kentucky, a state already at the bottom of the cultural and economic barrel of the nation, and he exacerbated the very social qualities of the place that had kept true progress (making gains on its peers, rather than playing catch up) out of reach for so long.  McConnell’s strategy was to spear his political legacy with a wicked trident of slash-and-burn partisan politics, redneck populism, and moneyed corporate interests.

McConnell’s Kentucky GOP is today the political establishment in the state, and you can see what sort of establishment it is by the criminal behavior and incompetence of the administration of Governor Ernie Fletcher (R). 

As I write, that Republican establishment is bunkering itself deep beneath the political reality on the ground in Kentucky.  While Ernie Fletcher and his minions ratchet up their language of fear on expanded gaming and hate against sexual minorities and while Mitch McConnell continues to cultivate the corrupt environment of campaign finance in Washington that he fathered and stands steadfast behind the reckless presidency of George W. Bush, neither Fletcher or McConnell is making headway among Kentuckians. 

Both are indeed consolidating support among their conservative base, but that base is shrinking.  Kentuckians are waking up to the reality of what Fletcher, McConnell, and conservatives truly are.

The people of Kentucky are once again seething against their political establishment, but this time there is an energized and organized progressive Democratic party waiting in the wings.  Whereas last time when Kentuckians cleaned political house they replaced bad with worse, this time the alternative to entrenched Republican corruption is a Democratic party that offers the hope of change and a better future for us all.

From SUSA (likely voters; 08/04 – 08/06; 7/14-7/16 in parens

Steve Beshear (D): 58 (59)
Ernie Fletcher (R-inc.): 37 (36)
MoE: ± 4%

Still a solid lead for Beshear, who currently is mopping the floor with Fletcher in all areas of the state:

In Western KY, Fletcher trails today by 8. In Eastern KY, Fletcher trails by 13. In North Central KY, Fletcher trails by 22. In greater Louisville, Fletcher trails by 34.

But wait, there’s a wrinkle in the poll: it oversamples Republicans, as Mark Hebert and Mark Nikolas (of the newly-resurrected Bluegrass Report) point out:

In the previous 30 Survey USA polls on Fletcher’s job approval, the average percentage of Republicans sampled was just 34.8% — and the previous general election match-up on Survey USA showed 37% Republican respondents. This means that Fletcher was barely able to tread water in this poll despite a 7 to 9 point advantage from oversampling Republicans. Very, very bad news.

I’d be quite surprised if this one didn’t tighten up in the months ahead, given what Mark describes as a utterly stenographic local media willing to carry Fletcher’s message, but that’s not a new challenge for any Democrat to face.

From SUSA (likely voters; 7/14-7/16; 5/25 in parens):

Steve Beshear (D): 59 (62)
Ernie Fletcher (R-inc.): 36 (34)
MoE: ± 4.2%

No comebacks for Ernie yet.  Beshear collects the support of 24% of Republicans and 60% of independents, while Fletcher only garners the support of 13% of Democrats (remember: Kentucky has a very wide Democratic voter registration advantage).  That’s down from 36% of Republicans after the bitterly divisive Republican primary in May, but up from 52% of indies.

Beshear is still in the driver’s seat with less than four months until election day.

From Rasmussen (likely voters, no trendlines):

Beshear (D): 51
Fletcher (R-inc.): 35
Other: 8
Undecided: 6
(MoE: ±4.5%)

This poll comes on the heels of a SUSA survey which showed Beshear with an even larger lead. It’s a little hard to know what to believe, except for one thing: Fletcher is in the doghouse, and he’d have to pull off a miracle to come out of it. Then again, I figured for sure Northup would clobber him. Can lightning strike twice for Ernie? I doubt it, but I’m done saying “never” in this business.

P.S. Mark Nickolas has some more thoughts here. Amusingly, he also takes the Sean Connery pledge to never say never.

(Hat-tip: Taegan Goddard.)