Matt Gunterman September 22nd, 2007

When you’re a Democrat who’s 15-20 points up in all the reputable polls with barely more than a month to go in the campaign, momentum is yours as the state electorate rallies around you as the level-headed candidate in the race, and your base is energized after years in the wilderness, what do you not do?

You do not thumb your nose at your base. You do not deflate them, and — more importantly — you do not deflate them in a futile effort to attract the affections of your opponent’s conservative base. First, that base hasn’t lifted a finger to make your campaign and eventual victory possible. Second, that base isn’t going to vote for you no matter how much you court them. Third, that base and its ideology aren’t the sort of things we need to embrace as a state to get ahead and make up for all the ground we’ve lost in recent years.

What has provoked all the above? Read below (from the Herald-Leader’s Polwatcher blog):

September 21, 2007

Gubernatorial Debate: More on abortion

In this installment of our gubernatorial debate, the candidates ask the questions.

Each campaign crafted their own question for the opposing candidate with two rules in mind: the question had to somehow relate to abortion, our topic of the week, and it had to be 50 words or less. Answers to the questions had to be 100 words or less.

Here’s what Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher and Democratic challenger Steve Beshear had to say.

Beshear’s Question:

As a legislator, Steve Beshear voted to add abortion restrictions, including: parental consent, a requirement that women be informed of abortion’s physical and mental consequences, and a ban after the first trimester except when a mother’s life or health is threatened. What abortion restrictions have you had enacted as Governor?

Fletcher’s Answer:

Steve, your half-truths won’t allow you to be someone you’re not. You voted for legislation then turned around and called similar legislation unconstitutional as Attorney General. You have a long record supporting abortion, such as when you said you’d oppose legislation like the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 because it didn’t contain sufficient loopholes for the pro-abortion lobby. I voted for that ban.

Unlike you, I have been a consistent protector of the unborn. The first bill I signed was Fetal Homicide legislation. I support a requirement for informed consent, which was blocked in the House by your allies.

[...]

Now, I realize that good help is hard to find these days, but one has to wonder who and how many hands gave the green light to that question coming out of the Beshear camp. They could have made essentially the same point by framing Fletcher as the radical in the equation. For example, it could have been written so:

Steve Beshear’s record on abortion accurately reflects the complex and balanced views of Kentuckians on this controversial issue. As a legislator, he supported parental consent, expanded counseling for women seeking abortions, and regulation of abortions after the first trimester. Why does Governor Fletcher expect Kentuckians to endorse his extremist agenda?

Instead what we have is the appearance of Beshear trying to out radicalize the radical conservative. Beshear is essentially saying that the place where he wants to be is the radical conservative in the race, and that Fletcher’s credentials as a radical conservative aren’t legitimate. Thus, Beshear has just legitimized Fletcher’s campaign strategy of painting him as a loony lefty, when all Beshear had to do was paint Fletcher as a loony righty.

Bleh. There’s no way the SS Beshear sinks at this point in time, but it well could limp into port.

• Ernie Fletcher , Gubernatorial race '07 , Steve Beshear
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