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Election Night Wrap Up (Part 1)
May 22, 2007
Let's face it, political comebacks are the stories of the night.
Steve Beshear comes back from whoopins in the 1987 governor's race and the 1996 U.S. Senate race to win the democratic primary for governor without a runoff.
Ernie Fletcher, who was called "politically dead" by a number of political pundits (not me, though I had him on life support) last year is now staring at a 50-50 shot of getting reelected.
Questions: Is Anne Northup's political career over? Maybe not. She could still win a local race in Jefferson County. Is Steve Henry's political career over? Yes. Henry lost to a Lexington lawyer in Henry's adopted hometown of Louisville. Henry told me tonight that he's "disappointed" with Jefferson County voters, especially after all he's done for this community. Henry says he "can't imagine" running for office again but wouldn't rule it out. His wife, Heather French Henry, wouldn't directly answering the question on whether she might run for office at some point in the future. The Henrys say they'll turn to the four foundations they run and spend more time with their two daughters.
Is Jody Richards political career over? No. He'll still be Speaker of the House in 2008 but my guess is that he'll retire after 2008. He's the longest serving speaker in Kentucky history but one always loses some power when one runs for office and loses badly.
Biggest winner: Steve Beshear
Biggest loser: Greg Stumbo-would have been easily reelected to Attorney General but took a big gamble and lost. He cut the deal with Fletcher letting the governor off the hook and giving him new political life. He passed up a solid chance for another four years in office to jump on the Lunsford bandwagon and lost.
No. 2 biggest loser: Mitch McConnell. Kentucky's senior senator is now 0 for 2 in his recent big races, pushing Ernie Fletcher in '03 and winning, but getting blowback from voters since then AND now supporting Anne Northup behind the scenes, ticking off his party's standardbearer as McConnell heads into his reelection year. McConnell issued a statement tonight saying " Kentucky Republicans have spoken, and it is now time for our party to stand united behind Governor Fletcher and work to ensure his reelection in November. He has my full support and I look forward to working with him to move Kentucky forward."
Biggest mistake by voters: Democrats choosing perennial candidate David L. Williams of Glasgow over David Neville of Shelby County in the Ag. Commissioner's race. Neville is a farmer and legitimate candidate. Neither had a chance to beat Richie Farmer in November but picking Williams reminds me of the Republicans choice of carpet salesman Jack Wood over now-judge Tim Feeley in the A.G's primary four years ago.
Posted by mark.hebert at May 22, 2007 09:40 PM
Comments
The Fletcher apologists just cannot understand why the Kentucky voter will hold Fletcher to his pledge to change the culture in Frankfort. They continue to beat the same old drum, that previous governors had "done the exact same thing." Talk about lack of personal responsibility!
Posted by: Rick Johnson at May 23, 2007 12:48 PM
Mark Hebert,
Your penned thoughts on "Political Comebacks" is totally INCOMPLETE:
While it is an accomplishment that after 20 years Beshear, self-admitting, that he finally learned how to win the race ... I think the bigger "Political Comeback" last night was Ernie Fletcher and you left that completely out of your story. Bias?
Anyway, what you may have intentionally left out of your piece is that Ernie Fletcher made a historic political comeback last night. The Republican voters saw right through the exaggerated witch-hunt that the democrats had against Fletcher when he beat Ben Chandler in 2003. Not only were the democrats doing their best from the moment Fletcher won in 2003 to discredit and defame Ernie Fletcher the so-called journalists in this state, not excluding the political reporter for WHAS, aided the democrats in the propaganda to destroy Fletcher's future in politics. All the while the democrats and the so-called political reporters in this state refused to print that all the democratic governors before Fletcher had done the exact same thing they accused Fletcher of doing. In fact, I don't recall reading anything about the massive firings of merit & non-merit employees under John Y. Brown, Jr (D) while the then Attorney General Beshear (D) looked the other way.
I think the Republicans realized a long time ago that the witch-hunt was lop sided and facts were intentionally being distorted. It is possible that the Republicans voting realized that as long as merit employees were losing their jobs to democratic cronies the democrats and the press was happy. But once the Republicans realized that many of those democrats that had been "GIVEN" jobs by past democratic administrations were incompetent -- the press got upset and blew the story way out of proportion.
Apparently all those embellished stories from the press, including those witty clich�s like, unelectable, were a waste of ink and energy from the press.
Ernie Fletcher won by a HUGE margin overcoming all the political odds that the democrats and their friends tried to rail-road Ernie with.
I hope the press has at least learned the stories they keep printing regarding the alleged firing scandal didn't work, won't work, and begin a new leaf of real reporting without the obvious, blatant bias.
Posted by: max at May 23, 2007 08:41 AM
Some Northup supporting bloggers will not accept comments on the election tonight. I suppose the CROW is hard to swallow if able to at all. I expect the McConnell unity rally to be a fizz ... The "machine" being beaten ? ...imagine that! Could there be another Republican primary in the works if republicans don't unite ?
Posted by: Kyrepnews at May 23, 2007 12:02 AM
