Kentucky Governor's Race and GOP Overreach

Four years ago, Steve Beshear's victory over incumbent Gov. Ernie Fletcher was taken as a harbinger for the 2008 presidential election. It probably wasn't, even though Democrats ran the table nationally, because a rabid ferret could have beaten Fletcher that year.

Now Beshear is the one seeking re-election, and is again fortunate in his opponent: David Williams is the most hated man in Kentucky, and his running mate is so dim they're not letting him speak in public. If Beshear wins, will it be good news for national Democrats in 2012?

Joe Gerth at the Courier asks the opposite question: will GOP overreach nationally help Beshear?

And the votes had barely been counted in Hochul's election when the Democratic National Committee sent out an e-mail to Kentucky reporters reminding them that Republican Reps. Ed Whitfield, Brett Guthrie, Hal Rogers and Geoff Davis — the state's entire Republican House delegation — voted for the GOP plan, which would also reduce federal Medicaid payments for children and the poor.

Alec Gerlach, a spokesman for the DNC, declined to say if he thought the issue could play a role in Kentucky's gubernatorial race. If it does, it wouldn't be the first time.

The last time national politics played a role in a Kentucky gubernatorial race was in 1995, following the ’94 Republican revolution.

That year Democrat Paul Patton and Republican Larry Forgy were duking it out for the governorship.

Early in the race, it appeared that Republicans had the advantage on national issues. The Republican revolution had, in fact, begun in Kentucky with a special election win by Ron Lewis in the state's 2nd District during the summer of 1994.

And Forgy had an advantage in the polls.

But the Republicans, fresh off winning control of the House for the first time in 40 years, went about rolling back decades of Democratic rule like they were killing snakes. And the public didn't like it.

Democrats focused on proposed cuts to Medicare and on Republican plans to sell power-generating plants located at 22 Corps of Engineers reservoirs in the southeast, including on four popular Kentucky lakes.

Patton won by 2 percentage points and served eight years as Kentucky's most progressive governor in 40 years.

This year, it's pretty clear that neither Beshear nor the Kentucky Democratic Party has any interest in attacking the GOP at its weak points: the KDP because it's run by a republican and Beshear because he's running as hard and fast to his right as he can.

If Beshear runs as a faux republican and loses, that's the real lesson for national Democrats.