I have been wondering how to sum up why I think that Governor Ernie Fletcher has no chance whatsoever in the next gubernatorial elections when I came across an article in the Georgetown News-Graphic by Bob Leonard. http://www.georgetownnews.com/articles/2007/09/20/opinion/opinion01.txt Leonard, a self proclaimed Democrat, described what he saw as the fundamental flaw in a recent debate between Fletcher and his challenger Steve Beshear. What he saw was a Governor attacking an opponent on his ethics and moral values. Does that strike you as odd as it does to me? A governor that has had 28 members of his own administration (including himself) indicted should think a little first before trying to gain the moral high ground. The worst part for Fletcher is that his democratic opponents don’t even need to spend money advertising this. Republican Anne Northup has already pointed this out with her add campaigns.
Normally I would just scratch my head and wonder if he really just did that, but that my head is starting to bleed from all the scratching, so now when I see or hear things like this, I just have to calmly remind myself that Fletcher is an idiot. To me it really is that simple, Fletcher is just too dumb to win this election. Leonard made an interesting point in that if Fletcher had just stuck to his original line that his officials had engaged in some misconduct and he was sorry, he may be a in a much better position today and may have gotten a lot more done during his ternure in office. Instead he resorted to pleading the fifth, resorting to an emergency legal defense fund, and making a plea deal with the Attorney General Stumbo to keep himself out of court. Yet after all of this, Fletcher is still the moral man of the two. Please………..
Fletcher seems to forget the original promise of his campaign four years ago.
Yes everyone, the first Republican Governor in 28 years was going to clean up Kentucky politics. Alas, Bluegrassreport.org reports in a recent poll that Kentuckians believe by a 7:1 margin that the Governor has not cleaned up the mess in Frankfort. http://www.bluegrassreport.org/bluegrass_politics/2007/09/bluegrass-poll-.html To add more sand in the Governor’s wounds, Kentucky Republicans by a 3:1 margin believe that the Governor has not cleaned up the mess in Frankfort. To me this just quantifies the degree to which Kentucky Republicans have become disillusioned with Ernie Fletcher.
In a state that is largely democratic with conservative leanings, you may just regard this as a reclamation by democrats of their original demographic, but a new report by BlueGrassRoots.org shows that this may not be the case. http://bluegrassroots.org/showDiary.do?diaryId=205 This article said that amongst people who go to church once a week, Fletcher and Beshear are almost even, but amongst conservative evangelicals Fletcher has 40% of the vote, Beshear has 53% of the vote. For a republican trying to play to the conservative right, this is an ominous sign.
While looking for a reason to how Fletcher could be losing ground even amongst his most staunch supporters I was provided the answer during a visit to UK by Kentucky State Representative Keith Hall, who supported Fletcher in 2003. When asked why he no longer supported the Governor, he simply stated, “He doesn’t listen.” You know what….he’s right. Voters in 2003 asked Fletcher to clean up the mess in Frankfort. He didn’t listen. At the present, Governor Fletcher is banking a lot in his fight against casino gambling in Kentucky, going so far as to fight a memorandum on the issue in the next elections. If he would just listen to the people he might see that the majority of Kentuckians agree with him, but they by an 82% majority want the opportunity to vote on the issue themselves. http://polwatchers.typepad.com/pol_watchers/2007/09/a-plurality-of-.html
Sorry, I am going to have to end this here. The scratch on my head just started bleeding again.
