Matt Gunterman November 12th, 2007

Life is good. Governor-elect Steve Beshear (D) is showing all Kentucky that he gets it; he’s quickly building an administration based on merit and unity. He’s gearing up to change the way Kentucky is governed, and that will make Kentucky better prepared to face the challenges of today and tomorrow.

What can we all do to help our new governor? We can continue to marginalize conservatives in our daily lives, to make them the crazy aunts in the attic of our culture that they deserve to be. The next four or five years won’t be easy as Democrats will have to pull the nation together to clean up the general disaster (especially the economy) that will be left us by Pres. George W. Bush (R) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R), but we’ll pull through. Really, when gas hits $4 a gallon this summer, won’t crazy Rep. Stan Lee’s obsession with the gays look pretty trivial?

And, of course, Yale defeated Princeton this weekend to advance to 9-0 on the season, and this Saturday is The Game at home against Harvard. A win this weekend will give the Bulldog’s their first undefeated season since 1960. Two of my students will be on the field, and I will be there to rally them on (after a good tailgate extravaganza).

There was lots of talk this Sunday in the papers on Sen. Mitch McConnell and his future.

First, the Courier-Journal. Joe Gerth has a fantastic, schadenfreude-filled roundup of this weekend’s GOP Central Committee meeting in Lexington. Here’s some excerpts of note:

Kentucky GOP looks to future after losses

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Republicans met in Lexington yesterday and said that despite the fact that they lost the governor’s race on Tuesday, they are still a force in the state and will regain their momentum next year.

Democrats, however, said the defeat is a sign of weakness within the Republican party that has allowed for a resurgence by the Democrats.

[...]

Fletcher urged the party — which has been split between allegiance to Fletcher and to former U.S. Rep. Anne Northup, who challenged Fletcher in the Republican primary — to unite.

“Ernie Fletcher and Robbie Rudolph (his running mate) will be supporting Mitch McConnell and discouraging anyone from getting into a primary against him,” Fletcher said. “We don’t need that.”

Afterward, Fletcher said he also doesn’t believe anyone should run as an independent against McConnell. Former Republican gubernatorial candidate Larry Forgy, angry that McConnell didn’t help Fletcher as much as he would have liked, has said he’s considering challenging McConnell as an independent.

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In a Newsweek article published online this week, former Courier-Journal reporter Howard Fineman compared Beshear’s win to Republican Louie Nunn’s victory in the 1967 governor’s race, which President Richard Nixon believed foretold his own victory in 1968.

Beshear’s win — and the fact that Fletcher lost all the state’s traditionally Democratic counties — led Fineman to ask if this was the beginning of the end of the Republican’s “solid south.”

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James R. Carroll has a few gems on McConnell, as well.

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Other views on ‘08

Fletcher’s defeat and the implications for McConnell in 2008 are on the minds of many political observers.

The governor’s ethics troubles were the most important factor in his loss, said Thomas Mann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

“To a lesser extent, it also registers the anti-Bush/Republican sentiment in the country, which bodes ill for Republicans in 2008 without a dramatic reversal in public sentiment,” Mann said.

“Finally, it suggests Democrats may be more competitive in the state than they have been recently. The latter two suggest McConnell should run scared, even as he maintains his position as the favorite.”

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said the Republicans “are being punished for George Bush and the Iraq war,” no matter what level of government those Republicans are in.

“Yes, I know about the corruption and how Fletcher handled it. Fletcher couldn’t have been dumber,” he said. “Does that explain a landslide? No.

“My money is on Mitch McConnell because history suggests it ought to be,” Sabato said.

“But if I were Mitch McConnell, I’d be very nervous. Because there’s a Democratic trend in his state, a new Democratic governor who’s going to try to get him, and he is the representative of George Bush and the Iraq war in Kentucky. Good luck!”

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Veteran political journalist Al Cross offers a juicy spiel, and even gets a final, parting dig in at Gov. Ernie Fletcher at the end.

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McConnell vs. Luallen?

Because Kentucky elects its governor in the year before a presidential election, national observers always ask what the gubernatorial result means for the next year’s federal elections. In this case, the election of most interest is for the U.S. Senate seat held by Mitch McConnell, leader of the Senate’s powerful Republican minority.

McConnell started television advertising last week, tapping a $9 million campaign fund that is already a Kentucky record. His ad follows spots from Democratic and liberal groups that would like to do to him what Republicans did in 2004 to Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, then the Democratic leader.

Is McConnell running ads because he’s worried, or because he has so much money? As usual, he probably has more than one good reason. He has already said he expects this to be his toughest race for re-election.

McConnell seems to be following the strategy he used to get elected leader last year, when his ally, Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah, told The Associated Press: “Whenever somebody decided to run, all we had to do was sit down and say to them, ‘This is what you’re going to have to deal with.’ One by one potential opponents said, ‘Wait a minute; I don’t want to run and lose.’ ”

That scare-’em-off strategy is unlikely to work on state Auditor Crit Luallen, freshly re-elected. Look for her to be McConnell’s Democratic opponent.

The Almanac of American Politics 2008, just released, says McConnell’s seat “seems secure, but his support for the Bush administration on Iraq and on immigration in 2007 makes it possible he might face competitive opposition in 2008.” With a Democratic governor, it is more than possible, and things are not always what they seem. Ask Ernie Fletcher, who thought his next job might be president.

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And David Hawpe returns this week to the topic of fancy Mitch in fancy dress.

Should McConnell tighten up or lighten up?

All these groups that want to make Mitch McConnell nervous — they should start running ads that show him in bow ties. For some reason, he loathes being revealed to the public in black tie and tux, or white tie and tails.

This has always mystified me. I think he looks just fine in fancy dress.

Recently, however, I came upon a possible explanation. A survey of 904 Americans by HCD Research found that men who wear bow ties are viewed as older, fidgety, dull, more “scientific” and “a little weird.”

Now if I had been one of George W. Bush’s enablers as long as our senior senator has, I might be squirming in my seat, too. Once you’ve stood by, presumably approving, as the President says, “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job,” you ought to be nervous.

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