Al Cross: Tea Party Influencing GOP In Kentucky.
Tea party influencing GOP in Kentucky
By Al Cross
FRANKFORT, Ky. — For years, the Republicans who run the state Senate have preached smaller government and less spending, but joined House Democrats in approving local construction projects that added to the state's debt.
This year, the Republicans seemed to really get religion, refusing to approve House-approved borrowing for projects, mainly to replace old, badly dilapidated schools, mostly in poor, rural districts. The standoff ended without a budget, repeating the similar failures in 2002 and 2004.
Was Senate Republicans' new stance philosophy-driven policy? In part, but perhaps more practical politics.
Their likely nominee for the U.S. Senate, Rand Paul, is riding and amplifying the national Tea Party wave against debt, deficits and forms of government spending that many Republicans have long supported. He's at the top of the ballot with a popular platform, so joining him seems likely to boost Republican chances in this fall's legislative elections, and maybe even elections for local office.
House Democrats, addicted to local projects for a decade or more, seemed to have a hard time understanding the public mood, and finally gave in and offered a one-year continuation budget. Senate Republicans accurately said it was fraught with problems, but Senate President David Williams also displayed their political agenda with a silly statement comparing Gov. Steve Beshear to President Obama and House Speaker Greg Stumbo to his Washington counterpart, Nancy Pelosi.
The House missed a bet by not offering the Senate this: We'll pass that charter-schools bill you have been preaching about if you will pass our debt to replace the very worst schools. That would have forced the Senate to choose between an election strategy and a victory on a major issue. But the House remains in thrall to the Kentucky Education Association, which continued to oppose the charter bill despite evidence that Kentucky would have already received hundreds of millions in federal Race to the Top education funds if the state had such a law. Perhaps the two issues will be linked in the special session that Beshear will call to pass a budget.
The final flurry fittingly came on Tax Day, April 15. It immediately followed, and was related to, the biggest purely political news of the week: retiring Republican Sen. Jim Bunning's endorsement of Paul over Secretary of State Trey Grayson, who is the quiet choice of Kentucky's other senator, Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The endorsement surprised some, since Bunning and Grayson are both from Northern Kentucky, were long on friendly terms, and Bunning gave his blessing to an exploratory campaign by Grayson as McConnell was trying to get Bunning to retire.
But behind the scenes, the Bunning-Grayson handoff was not entirely smooth, and once Jim Bunning's feathers are ruffled, they stay ruffled. More importantly, endorsing Paul puts Bunning on the bandwagon of his most likely successor, increasing his own chances for a final victory as he leaves the stage — and it works revenge on McConnell for forcing him into retirement.
McConnell has not publicly endorsed Grayson, perhaps because he might need Paul's vote to become majority leader after a possible Republican landslide and knows an endorsement would give Grayson more of an establishment aura, not a good thing. The Tea Party folks are not only fed up with big-spending Democrats, but with Republicans like McConnell who voted for George W. Bush's economic-stimulus package and Wall Street bailouts.
But now that Bunning, a Hall of Fame pitcher and competitor to the end, has thrown his last spitter, Grayson badly needs mainstream Republicans such as McConnell and 5th District U.S. Rep. Harold “Hal” Rogers of Somerset to make their support of him public and say Paul is outside the party mainstream and runs the risk of losing the seat to a Democrat.
Rogers' support of Grayson was evident last week when Sen. Tom Jensen of London, a former state Republican chairman, was announced as chairman of Grayson's campaign in the Rogers district. There and in some other Republican areas, party workers see the grassroots support for Paul and are asking their local and regional leaders if it's OK to be for him.
Will party leaders who prefer Grayson put their faces into the Tea Party wind? It's doubtful, because they tend to be risk-averse, and their polls may show Paul likely to beat either leading Democrat, Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo or Attorney General Jack Conway. And there's one reason for sure: The Tea Party movement is not merely an outside force acting upon the Kentucky GOP.
Among Kentucky Republicans there have always been anti-debt, anti-deficit, anti-spending, anti-tax, even anti-government threads of thought, forming a strong rope of economic conservatism. It has been suppressed because Kentucky is a poor state that needs federal help and the state party has been led by McConnell and Rogers, ranking Appropriations Committee members who love the earmarks Paul rails against. Paul has tapped into that thread, and revived it, and that's why he's ahead.
But how far ahead? A poll for Grayson found him only two percentage points behind Paul, a big difference with most surveys, which have shown a Paul edge well into double digits. The difference probably stems from the polls' differing methodologies.
The prevailing polls, including those for this newspaper, use purely random samples and recorded questions. The Grayson poll used live interviewers and drew its sample from voters who had cast ballots in at least one of the last four Republican primaries and who said chances were at least even that they would vote in the May 18 primary.Polling in primaries is more difficult because turnout is lower than in general elections; the key is predicting who will vote. Grayson's poll might be more predictive because it used a sample based on voting history, and because live interviews are more likely to elicit responses that go beyond knee-jerk, superficial opinions. But in this primary, the Tea Party wave could produce a turnout that differs from past patterns, and a heavy dose of votes that are based on one big, simple issue: spending and debt.
Al Cross, former Courier-Journal political writer, is director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky. His e-mail address is al.cross@uky.edu. His views are his own, not those of the University of Kentucky
By Al Cross
FRANKFORT, Ky. — For years, the Republicans who run the state Senate have preached smaller government and less spending, but joined House Democrats in approving local construction projects that added to the state's debt.
This year, the Republicans seemed to really get religion, refusing to approve House-approved borrowing for projects, mainly to replace old, badly dilapidated schools, mostly in poor, rural districts. The standoff ended without a budget, repeating the similar failures in 2002 and 2004.
Was Senate Republicans' new stance philosophy-driven policy? In part, but perhaps more practical politics.
Their likely nominee for the U.S. Senate, Rand Paul, is riding and amplifying the national Tea Party wave against debt, deficits and forms of government spending that many Republicans have long supported. He's at the top of the ballot with a popular platform, so joining him seems likely to boost Republican chances in this fall's legislative elections, and maybe even elections for local office.
House Democrats, addicted to local projects for a decade or more, seemed to have a hard time understanding the public mood, and finally gave in and offered a one-year continuation budget. Senate Republicans accurately said it was fraught with problems, but Senate President David Williams also displayed their political agenda with a silly statement comparing Gov. Steve Beshear to President Obama and House Speaker Greg Stumbo to his Washington counterpart, Nancy Pelosi.
The House missed a bet by not offering the Senate this: We'll pass that charter-schools bill you have been preaching about if you will pass our debt to replace the very worst schools. That would have forced the Senate to choose between an election strategy and a victory on a major issue. But the House remains in thrall to the Kentucky Education Association, which continued to oppose the charter bill despite evidence that Kentucky would have already received hundreds of millions in federal Race to the Top education funds if the state had such a law. Perhaps the two issues will be linked in the special session that Beshear will call to pass a budget.
The final flurry fittingly came on Tax Day, April 15. It immediately followed, and was related to, the biggest purely political news of the week: retiring Republican Sen. Jim Bunning's endorsement of Paul over Secretary of State Trey Grayson, who is the quiet choice of Kentucky's other senator, Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The endorsement surprised some, since Bunning and Grayson are both from Northern Kentucky, were long on friendly terms, and Bunning gave his blessing to an exploratory campaign by Grayson as McConnell was trying to get Bunning to retire.
But behind the scenes, the Bunning-Grayson handoff was not entirely smooth, and once Jim Bunning's feathers are ruffled, they stay ruffled. More importantly, endorsing Paul puts Bunning on the bandwagon of his most likely successor, increasing his own chances for a final victory as he leaves the stage — and it works revenge on McConnell for forcing him into retirement.
McConnell has not publicly endorsed Grayson, perhaps because he might need Paul's vote to become majority leader after a possible Republican landslide and knows an endorsement would give Grayson more of an establishment aura, not a good thing. The Tea Party folks are not only fed up with big-spending Democrats, but with Republicans like McConnell who voted for George W. Bush's economic-stimulus package and Wall Street bailouts.
But now that Bunning, a Hall of Fame pitcher and competitor to the end, has thrown his last spitter, Grayson badly needs mainstream Republicans such as McConnell and 5th District U.S. Rep. Harold “Hal” Rogers of Somerset to make their support of him public and say Paul is outside the party mainstream and runs the risk of losing the seat to a Democrat.
Rogers' support of Grayson was evident last week when Sen. Tom Jensen of London, a former state Republican chairman, was announced as chairman of Grayson's campaign in the Rogers district. There and in some other Republican areas, party workers see the grassroots support for Paul and are asking their local and regional leaders if it's OK to be for him.
Will party leaders who prefer Grayson put their faces into the Tea Party wind? It's doubtful, because they tend to be risk-averse, and their polls may show Paul likely to beat either leading Democrat, Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo or Attorney General Jack Conway. And there's one reason for sure: The Tea Party movement is not merely an outside force acting upon the Kentucky GOP.
Among Kentucky Republicans there have always been anti-debt, anti-deficit, anti-spending, anti-tax, even anti-government threads of thought, forming a strong rope of economic conservatism. It has been suppressed because Kentucky is a poor state that needs federal help and the state party has been led by McConnell and Rogers, ranking Appropriations Committee members who love the earmarks Paul rails against. Paul has tapped into that thread, and revived it, and that's why he's ahead.
But how far ahead? A poll for Grayson found him only two percentage points behind Paul, a big difference with most surveys, which have shown a Paul edge well into double digits. The difference probably stems from the polls' differing methodologies.
The prevailing polls, including those for this newspaper, use purely random samples and recorded questions. The Grayson poll used live interviewers and drew its sample from voters who had cast ballots in at least one of the last four Republican primaries and who said chances were at least even that they would vote in the May 18 primary.Polling in primaries is more difficult because turnout is lower than in general elections; the key is predicting who will vote. Grayson's poll might be more predictive because it used a sample based on voting history, and because live interviews are more likely to elicit responses that go beyond knee-jerk, superficial opinions. But in this primary, the Tea Party wave could produce a turnout that differs from past patterns, and a heavy dose of votes that are based on one big, simple issue: spending and debt.
Al Cross, former Courier-Journal political writer, is director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky. His e-mail address is al.cross@uky.edu. His views are his own, not those of the University of Kentucky
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