(crossposted at BlueGrassRoots)

Notice anything wrong with this picture?

This was taken January 29th on the filing deadline when Anne Northup submitted the papers for her candidacy (her 3rd loss in 2 years.)

What does that envelope say?

Fed-Ex?

Hmmm…. isn't their competitor, UPS, the #1 employer in Kentucky's Third District??? And that would be the unionized UPS, rather than the non-union, anti-union Fed-ex, right? 

Some things never change. Anne Northup likes to lose elections and she's still anti-Labor. 

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So ousted Anne Northup has officially announced her candidacy against Rep. John Yarmuth. Also running in the GOP primary will be Louisville businessman Chris Thieneman, and it appears that some GOP careerists aren’t too happy about that:

[Thieneman] claimed in an interview that people working on her behalf have “threatened” him in an effort to get him out of the race — including Larry Cox, who runs Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office in Kentucky.

He said the threats weren’t of a physical nature. But he added that he had angered Northup and other Republicans and that the race would be ugly.

Northup denied that she or anyone working on her behalf has tried to get Thieneman out of the race. “There are several advantages of having a primary,” she said.

Thieneman, 42, is running as an “anti-establishment” candidate, but he said his comments weren’t orchestrated to help him solidify that position in the race.

He said several elected officials and other Republican officials have called him over the past few days and suggested that he leave the race or face an ugly battle against Northup.

He said that one state representative told him he has “stirred up Anne’s hornet’s nest,” and that Cox told him “you’re going to be in a fight like you’ve never been in before, and it’s going to be nasty.”

He also accused McConnell of being behind efforts by the party last year to clear the field for Roberts. He said “no one is going to convince me that Mitch McConnell didn’t have Erwin supposedly called up.”

Anne, give it up. We don’t want you. Your own party didn’t want you. Try to have a modicum of dignity, why don’t you? The message of Kentuckians to you and McConnell is loud and clear: we are SICK to DEATH of our elected officials not TALKING TO US, not LISTENING TO US and most of all, not WORKING FOR US! We are tired of politicians BOUGHT AND SOLD!

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I don’t know Chris Thieneman from Adam, but I feel for the guy because he’s encountering the wrath of Anne Northup and Senator Mitch McConnell. I realize, Chris Thienaman is a Republican, but he is standing up to power and I respect that.
It’s just more proof that Senator Mitch McConnell is the boss here in Kentucky and if you get in his way, you’re gonna pay. If you’re Heather Ryan, a Democrat, asking Senator Mitch McConnell a question he’s uncomfortable with, or a dedicated Republican not doing what Senator Mitch McConnell wants, the results are the same, you’re gonna pay.
Heather Ryan is a Democrat and Chris Thieneman is a Republican, and I have this to say to both of them, you’re gonna find out who your real friends are.
When it comes to politics Chris Thieneman and I may not agree on anything, but I believe we can agree on this, we don’t always go along to get along and we know what goes around comes around.
This is a free country and those that want to kiss Senator Mitch McConnell’s ass are free to do so and those that want to kick his ass are just as free.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not in a ass kissing mood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The video below is audio from the Tony Cruise Show Yesterday, January 28, 2008 and don’t be surprised if Senator Mitch McConnell pressures WHAS 840 to have the video removed from Youtube. If you click on the video and it says this video is no longer available, then you’ll know that Senator Mitch McConnell doesn’t want you to see it, but don’t get discouraged, if that occurs, just send me an email requesting the video and I’ll send it to you.
The Hillbilly

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Coming to a newsstand near you: The Nation with Bob Moser’s cover story entitled “Kentucky at War,” which examines Kentucky’s progressive grassroots community and how it’s reshaping the political and ideological landscapes of that state — and doing so outside the rigid, tepid, and unresponsive party structures.

It’s gonna be a hell of a read!

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I’m pasting today’s Political Notebook from the Courier-Journal’s Joseph Gerth below. It’s especially fun to read today, and he even offers a contest at the end: email him your ideas for doctored photographs of Ernie Fletcher.

Okay, very briefly, let me tell you how I see the world of politics, political journalism, and political blogging evolving in Kentucky.

First, professional political journalists now produce (and will continue to produce in the future) the vast majority of raw factual, objective materials that bloggers use. That’s the case because journalists are trained professionals, they get paid to do what they do full time, and they build up the networks needed to get the information they need to produce their craft.

Second, bloggers — on the left and the right — take the raw material that journalists produce and put it in a partisan context. Now, of course bloggers do upon occasion produce news of their own, but that’s the exception and not the rule. As an aside, I would never, ever, ever want to blog full time. I enjoy my day job too much, which is probably what these journalists would tell you about their experience with blogging, too. There is a real need among political junkies for our partisan context, however. We also spur dialog and provide a platform that allows for ideological issues and differences to be vetted.

In the end, with all this talk in the national media and traditional press about the inherent friction between bloggers and journalists, I think the biggest threat to political journalists, their profession, and trade is apathy among the public and a population that is so disconnected and uninformed from politics that it can’t digest and engage with it at the level of complexity that is needed in an increasingly complex American society.

In short: political bloggers number among political journalists most ardent readers, and political blogging has introduced me to the work of several journalists that I was previously very unaware of. Political blogging and political bloggers, as they both mature as a medium and community, might well serve to strengthen and broaden the impact of political journalism.

That having been said, I want to say that I’m a little bit disturbed by the behavior of Governor Ernie Fletcher (R) and his goons as of late. This altering of the image of Democratic candidate Steve Beshear takes the cake. Why?

As a transparently and viciously partisan and vicious blogger, I can and do say very ornery things about incompetent Republicans in Kentucky. That’s the luxury of being a blogger, especially one sitting a thousand miles away in the quiet seclusion of Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library, where the only thing distracting me at the moment is a beautiful creature standing a few feet away from me and looking at the New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia.

I doctor photographs, like this one and this one. I say things like, “Ernie Fletcher has a vagina up his asshole,” and, “Robbie Rudolph is a redneck idiot with no formal education,” and, “Stan Lee mixing his Christian fundamentalism with our politics makes him no better than a radical Islamicist.” I say these things because there’s a lot of truth to them and I say these things because I can. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to read my blog.

Yet, when our governor and his campaign start behaving like me, I think it betrays a great deal–that we already knew–about why the Fletcher administration is where it is. Ernie Fletcher and his goons never really understood the gravity and responsibility of the office and the unique opportunity they’ve been given. They still don’t understand it, and they never will understand it. But the people of Kentucky do understand it, and that’s why they’ll elect Steve Beshear this November.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Joseph Gerth | Political Notebook
Look before you leap

State Auditor Crit Luallen recently produced an audit mildly critical of the way state tourism funds have been spent, saying that Kentucky needs to develop a better strategic plan for spending new marketing money and determining if the money was spent wisely.

That upset at least one Republican blogger, Jessamine County Attorney Brian Goettl, of Conservativeedge.com, who asked in a headline: “What does LuAllen know about tourism?”

In the blog report, Goettl goes on to ask, “What does LuAllen know about tourism or marketing? What does her audit staff know about it? I would venture to say very little … LuAllen has no business making such pronouncements unless she can demonstrate her competence in the area or show that she relied on competent experts.”

Well. Luallen, a Democrat, points out that she served as tourism secretary under former Gov. Brereton Jones and continued to work on tourism projects as executive cabinet secretary under former Gov. Paul Patton.

During her time in those two roles, the state expanded or built convention centers in Louisville and Northern Kentucky, passed a $100 million bond issue to upgrade state parks and saw the private development of numerous attractions, including the Newport Aquarium, Louisville’s 4th Street Live and Kentucky Speedway, which she said were partly the result of changes she and the administrations she worked for sought in state law.

“The record is there,” she said. “I have a strong background in marketing, in economic development and in tourism and that was one reason we looked at this issue.”

Goettl said in an interview that he would like to review Luallen’s record as tourism secretary more closely before determining whether she and her office are qualified to make such recommendations.

The doctoring is in

Last week state Republican Chairman Steve Robertson said that doctoring photos is fair game in the governor’s race between Gov. Ernie Fletcher and his Democratic opponent, former Lt. Gov. Steve Beshear.

In its first salvo, the party unveiled brochures that have Beshear’s head Photoshopped onto a body wearing a white blazer, a white, open-collar shirt and a necklace, leaning against a roulette table and holding a glass of what looks to be white wine.

“Easy Money Steve” they call him because of his proposal to bring casino gambling, and $500 million annually in revenue, to Kentucky.

But we were a bit surprised by Democratic Party Chairman Jonathan Miller’s response condemning the practice. We figured the Democrats would view the Republican attack as tacit approval for such shenanigans if they chose to do the same.

If you were running Beshear’s campaign, how would you doctor a photo of Fletcher? And if you were running Fletcher’s campaign, how would you follow up the “Easy Money Steve” brochure?

E-mail me at jgerth@courier-journal.com, and we may run some of your responses in upcoming weeks.

Poll dancing

Last week we led with a couple of items about a poll by the Lexington public relations firm of Preston-Osborne, which drew questions on the Courier-Journal Web site from some readers who wondered if we had been “snookered.”

The poll, commissioned by The Lane Report, a Lexington business journal, dealt with issues ranging from the governor’s race to casino gaming and seemed to give Democratic gubernatorial nominee Steve Beshear an edge on several fronts.

The basic argument that we had been “snookered” is that Preston-Osborne was founded by Tommy Preston, a longtime friend of Beshear, and the firm also has a contract to do public relations work with the Kentucky Equine Education Project, which supports casinos.

The fact of the matter is that Preston sold his interest in the firm to Phil Osborne in 1997 and hasn’t been involved in the company since (although he and Osborne are friends and still talk regularly). As far as the KEEP connection, Osborne notes that if he fudged numbers for one client to benefit another, he wouldn’t be in business very long.

I don’t doubt he’s correct on that. But what ultimately led us to run the Lane Report results was the fact that the numbers were right in line with other polling data we’ve seen, which gives them some measure of reliability.
Outta here

I’ll be taking some much-needed vacation over the next two weeks. The column should return Sept. 10 but keep the cards and letters coming. I’ll be checking e-mails while I’m away.

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I liked this bit this morning from the Louisville Courier-Journal’s coverage of last night’s political action:

[…]

When asked by an interviewer if she would attend a Republican “Unity Rally” Saturday in Frankfort, Northup walked away without answering.

After a year of refusing to talk about Fletcher, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky finally weighed in on his behalf last night.

“Kentucky Republicans have spoken, and it is now time for our party to stand united behind Governor Fletcher and work to ensure his re-election in November,” McConnell said in a statement. “He has my full support and I look forward to working with him to move Kentucky forward.”

[…]

We’ll see. We’ll see.

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When I started this blog back in March, I never anticipated that I’d spend as much time as I do on the phone. I was wholly prepared to allot time for researching and writing, but I never thought the phone would serve such a central role in my efforts here.

One of the best phone calls so far came this weekend from a Republican in Kentucky, a former elected Republican — one whose Republican brand predates the rise of the political machine of Senator Mitch McConnell.

For the most part, my role in this conversation was listener. I was getting some important perspective on the current political dynamics that are now rocking the foundations of the Kentucky GOP, and tried my best to soak it all in.

I’ll share the substantive conclusion of that conversation with you because I believe it’s an important one:

Mitch McConnell’s own success at building a political machine in the Republican party might be a major factor in his ultimate downfall in 2008.

By building a viable Republican party in Kentucky — one that is first and foremost defined by its machine politics and not necessarily its ideology –, McConnell has siphoned off enough of the traditional conservative good old boys — who are attracted to machine politics and power over ideology like moths to a flame — from the Democratic party to allow progressives Democrats to wage — for the first time in a long time — a successful fight for the heart of that party.

You’re seeing that battle play out in what will probably be a runoff battle between Steve Beshear, the progressive Democratic candidate, and Bruce Lunsford, the regressive one.

Over on the Republican side, McConnell’s unholy empire is starting to crumble because its persistence requires an operating patronage system.

To fall in line, good old boys must have patronage, and McConnell had thought that the final piece to his puzzle — the one that would make his machine the dominant force in Kentucky politics for a generation — was the governor’s mansion. Having the tools of a somewhat powerful executive, like the governorship, is always superior in the patronage department to having those of a very powerful legislator, like a senator.

Unfortunately, McConnell’s hand-picked Republican governor, Ernie Fletcher, didn’t play along. We don’t know all the details there, but we do know that the relationship, for whatever reason, wasn’t what McConnell was expecting it to be.

McConnell has always had enemies in the Republican party — namely the party’s storied Louie B. Nunn branch –, but now other Republicans are starting to have their doubts about McConnell, too.

The most pressing doubt isn’t that McConnell’s cowardice and selfishness have hurt Governor Fletcher, the most pressing doubt is that this state and this nation need to move in a drastically different direction, and Mitch McConnell cannot represent that new direction.

Mitch McConnell has spent his entire career working to get this state’s and this nation’s political systems where they are today: hyper-partisan, money-grubbing, and influence-mongering.

McConnell will never change the system. He is the system. And he’s fine and dandy with it. It’s served him well.

So, if 2008 ends up being a year when Americans — on both the left and right of the political spectrum — unite behind a change agenda, then Mitch McConnell’s got to go.

And plenty of Republicans are starting to realize that.

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The latest SUSA tracking numbers are out on Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher and they demonstrate why Fletcher will win the Republican primary this coming Tuesday: his general approval rating is on the rise and it’s 53 percent among Republicans.

I see few ways that an incumbent Republican governor will lose his own primary when his approval rating is above 50 percent within his own party and with the general environment of those numbers being of improvement.

Fletcher’s overall approval increased from 36 percent to 38 percent, and his disapproval went from 59 percent to 58 percent. Among Republicans, his approval remained steady at 53 percent, but his disapproval fell from 44 percent to 42 percent.

My prediction: In a huge blow to the political machine and gravitas of Senator Mitch McConnell, the result on Tuesday will be that Fletcher handily wins the Republican primary with 47 percent of the vote to Northup’s 38 and Harper’s 15 percent.

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Kentucky’s gubernatorial primary is gaining national attention, with NPR’s Audie Cornish reporting on the race during today’s Morning Edition. The story can be streamed online if you missed it earlier.

On a somewhat related note, charges against Mark Nickolas, Governor Ernie Fletcher’s biggest critic, have been dropped.

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If you couldn’t make it down to the Owensboro International BBQ this weekend, never fear: Hillbilly Report is here!

These speeches are short and are very revealing of the candidates. They’re worth the watch.

Steve Beshear:

Ann Northup:

Gatewood Galbraith:

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The Republican civil war — the one that’s manifest in the Kentucky GOP primary between Governor Ernie Fletcher and former Congresswoman Anne Northup (who is the sick-o-phant of Senator Mitch McConnell in the race) — is hotting up, to say the least. You can best get a sense of how things are shaping up with the latest round of attack ads from both candidates (the Herald-Leader PolWatcher blog has them up).

I love it. My money’s on Fletcher winning the primary with over 40 percent of the vote; thus the runoff would be avoided. But, no matter who wins on the Republican side, there will be deep bitterness. In fact, the most prolonged bitterness — and thus the worst case scenario for the Kentucky GOP in the long run — would likely result from a Northup win. Knowing his personality and the recent history of his political operation, a defeated Governor Fletcher and his organization would do pretty much all they could to undermine a victorious candidate Northup. I don’t see Fletcher and Rudolph suddenly falling into line behind McConnell and the Northup bandwagon. That hasn’t been their style so far.

So, if a Northup win is the worst thing for the Kentucky GOP as an institution, why am I not cheering for her, as some in the Democratic blogosphere in Kentucky most plainly are? I’m not because the best thing for the Kentucky Democratic Party is a Fletcher win. I want the Democrats to take back the governor’s mansion, and Fletcher will be the easiest candidate to beat. Certainly, I’d like to see a weakened Republican Party in the state, but I’d rather see a strong and energized Democratic Party first.

No matter the outcome in the Republican primary on May 22, the result will leave a good number of Republicans bitter, and that bitterness will hurt Mitch McConnell in 2008.

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Senator Mitch McConnell and his sycophant Anne Northup will be losing sleep over this trend.

The forthcoming SUSA tracking poll of Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher’s popularity will show his approval among Republicans jumping from 46 percent approval to 53 percent approval. His disapproval fell from 50 percent to 44 percent.

He’s gaining momentum where it counts. Republicans are rallying around their governor in direct defiance of the McConnell machine.

Hey, Mitch! What about that unity rally, buddy? Who’s accepted the invitation so far? Can you get anti-gun, pro-gay, pro-abortion Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney there? After all, your Republican buddies in Kentucky’s congressional delegation (Ron Lewis, Ed Whitfield, & Hal Rogers) endorsed him. Can you all get up on stage and hold hands and sing kumbaya?

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Amid reports that Anne Northup dropped nearly 10 points in the polls after Mitch McConnell became so worried about the efforts against him that he stopped fundraising for her, Northup’s campaign has now gone up on the air with an ad that will barely be seen. In an attempt to project a show of strength equaling incumbent Ernie Fletcher’s campaign, Northup announced she was airing her first ad this week. However, conservative blogs are reporting that her funds are so depleted that she can only go up with 660 points in Louisville, 450 points in Lexington, 125 points in Bowling Green, and cable television in Southeastern and Northern Kentucky. Remember that these last two areas are Republican hotbeds where she desperately needs to cut into Fletcher’s lead and even selected running mate Jeff Hoover in part because she thought he would bring votes from the Southeast part of the state. Fletcher is going up with 1,000 points in each of these markets. In addition, one high-dollar Northup fundraiser for last week was changed to a “meet and greet” with no donation required. Northup cannot be happy that Mitch McConnell was forced to bring George W. Bush to Louisville to raise money for himself from the donors they hoped to tap for her campaign. Clearly not good news for Northup and McConnell.

From KY Colonel @ Cliff Schecter dot com

(Thanks so much for inviting me to contribute. I’m stuck in the middle of book writing at the moment, so I am cross posting some of the work of the many talented people at my site.-Cliff)

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So, the poll numbers have been released. Source was right. The Lexington Herald-Leader’s Polwatcher blog has posted them. Incumbent Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher now leads Senator Mitch McConnell’s hand-selected Republican challenger (and recently defeated congresswomen) Anne Northup by 40 percent to 31 percent.

I’m also told that Governor Ernie Fletcher’s campaign strategy will take a play from Senator Joe Lieberman’s successful reelection bid in 2006, where Lieberman framed himself as an “independent Democrat.”

Fletcher’s team plan to promote the incumbent governor, in substance and style if not in actual name, as an “independent Republican,” in a conscious effort to distance themselves from the sinking McConnell brand and wing of the Kentucky GOP. It’s believed this effort will strongly complement the campaign’s already established theme: that the problems of the Fletcher administration’s first term were not a result of internal incompetence or corruption, but stemmed instead from its bucking the will of the entrenched establishment, Sen. Mitch McConnell and his machine included.

My question: what does this mean for Sen. Mitch McConnell’s unity rally?

Also, if in the process of this Republican primary Sen. McConnell and his minions create friction between them and Anne Northup’s camp with their timidity, that can’t be good for Sen. McConnell, either.

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Sources say the Survey USA numbers to be released this afternoon will show Gov. Ernie Fletcher, the great thorn in Sen. Mitch McConnell’s side, building momentum and approaching the magic 40 percent level. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s preferred candidate, Anne Northup, will be shown to be losing steam.

If all this pans out to be true, then it might explain why Sen. Mitch McConnell was so anxious to get that “unity rally” planned.

Also, did you find it suspicious that the unity rally was scheduled for May 26th? That would be BEFORE there’s a runoff election. So, is Sen. McConnell anticipating the implosion of his candidate Anne Northup?

PS: On the Democratic side, I’m told that Lunsford is gaining ground at Henry’s expense.

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