Al Cross: Race For Governor Has Been A Letdown. And I Say: That's Putting It MILDLY!
Race for governor has been a letdown
Written by Al Cross
DANVILLE, KY. — For one of my favorite editors, John Nelson, I went to one of my favorite towns last week to talk politics for the Danville Chamber of Commerce. Neither I nor my opposite number made any special preparation, but when I won the coin flip and went first, this summary came to mind and mouth:
Kentucky politics right now are very strange, and Washington politics are very sad.
The local strangeness, and some sadness, stems mainly from a governor’s race that some of us thought (and wrote) would be one for the ages, with two experienced, savvy and strategic lawyer-politicians duking it out over the issues, their records and the future of the commonwealth. Instead, we have a desultory exercise — it’s hard to call it a contest — among:
A Democratic governor who avoids joint appearances with his main foe and keeps building a huge lead in polls as the president of his party becomes more unpopular.
A Republican nominee who is one of the most accomplished but most disliked Kentucky politicians in modern times, and gets his main support from a shadowy group running silly ads.
A perennial independent candidate who provides both comic relief and intriguing points, and may draw more votes from the main challenger than from the incumbent, even when a poor economy is getting worse.
Gov. Steve Beshear, who drew bad cards when he first ran for governor in 1987 and the U.S. Senate in 1996, has been much luckier in the final phase of his political career. In 2007 he eased past some feckless primary opponents and trounced a Republican governor who was hobbled by scandal; now he faces state Senate President David Williams, who has lost ground since the first polls matched them up.
The depth of Williams’ predicament showed a week ago, when this newspaper’s poll showed his support at 26 percent, closer to independent Gatewood Galbraith’s 8 percent than to Beshear’s 57 percent — and only 30 percent of Republicans had a favorable opinion of Williams. Most answered “neutral” or “no opinion,” but 25 percent said their view of him was unfavorable. (The error margin is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.)
The day after the poll came out, Williams renewed his refrain that the state’s two major newspapers have portrayed him unfairly, damaging his campaign. Yes, he has taken a barrage of editorial criticism, but in the first half of his 12 years as Senate president he sometimes seemed to take pleasure in putting lesser beings in their place — and turned off some folks who could have helped him this year. That’s partly responsible for his poor showing in his own party.
Williams deserves a closer look, beyond the caricatures and ads attacking him. Those of us who have watched him in the legislature since 1985 know that he is one of the most capable and knowledgeable politicians of our time. Even when you don’t agree with him, you can usually see his point.
He was once legislative Democrats’ favorite Republican, voting for education reform and taxes to fund it. But when he became leader of his party and the Senate, he had to hold together a Republican caucus that had only a bare majority and many members who were more conservative than he was, and he had to be the party’s point man against Democratic governors. Meanwhile, his party kept moving to the right, and he moved with it.
When this race began, perhaps the biggest question about Williams was whether, if elected, he would revert to the old David and be a governor like Louie Nunn, a Republican who as a candidate was a partisan brawler but as governor continued and expanded the progressive policies of his immediate predecessors, Democrats Bert Combs and Ned Breathitt.
That question is approaching moot, though the race is likely to tighten, as the special election for governor of West Virginia did last week, after a raft of Republican ads associating the Democratic acting governor with President Barack Obama. Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin lost a big early lead and won by 2 points.
Kentuckians are seeing an anti-Beshear TV barrage by a mysterious entity called Restoring America, which will have some effect, but its ads are off base and sometimes just silly: The line about Kentucky being the worst-run state came from data that reflected historical trends much more than current management; there’s no proof Beshear has paid back utility executives who gave to his campaign; and the assertion that he “has failed to stop President Obama” and “sticks with President Obama” in ways that raise electric bills has no basis in fact. The Republican ads could be a lot tougher; we have yet to see one on abortion, though one is on the radio, or one pointing out that Beshear has said he will support Obama for re-election.
Speaking of Obama: He and Republican congressional leaders got a dire warning last week from The Economist, which is respected worldwide as a moderately conservative, pro-business voice: “Unless politicians act more boldly, the world economy will keep heading towards a black hole.” The editorial criticized rich nations’ “collective obsession with short-term austerity” at a time when stimulus is needed, and the prospect that the U.S. will have “the most stringent fiscal tightening of any big economy in 2012.”
The editorial said Obama “has favored class warfare over fiscal leadership,” but “Republicans are guilty of outrageous obstructionism and misleading simplification.” Sen. Mitch McConnell comes to mind. Like Williams, he has moved right with his party to remain a leader of it, and perhaps of a Senate majority in 2013.
Which brings me to the last big point I made in Danville: McConnell and his allies seem to have adopted as an article of faith the tea party’s maxim of “borrow no more.” That’s on top of “tax no more.” Unless they and Obama can compromise, to prevent a double-dip recession, they will be derelict in their duty to the country. And it’s sad we even have to say that.
Al Cross, former Courier-Journal political writer, is director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky. His opinions are his own, not those of the university.
Written by Al Cross
DANVILLE, KY. — For one of my favorite editors, John Nelson, I went to one of my favorite towns last week to talk politics for the Danville Chamber of Commerce. Neither I nor my opposite number made any special preparation, but when I won the coin flip and went first, this summary came to mind and mouth:
Kentucky politics right now are very strange, and Washington politics are very sad.
The local strangeness, and some sadness, stems mainly from a governor’s race that some of us thought (and wrote) would be one for the ages, with two experienced, savvy and strategic lawyer-politicians duking it out over the issues, their records and the future of the commonwealth. Instead, we have a desultory exercise — it’s hard to call it a contest — among:
A Democratic governor who avoids joint appearances with his main foe and keeps building a huge lead in polls as the president of his party becomes more unpopular.
A Republican nominee who is one of the most accomplished but most disliked Kentucky politicians in modern times, and gets his main support from a shadowy group running silly ads.
A perennial independent candidate who provides both comic relief and intriguing points, and may draw more votes from the main challenger than from the incumbent, even when a poor economy is getting worse.
Gov. Steve Beshear, who drew bad cards when he first ran for governor in 1987 and the U.S. Senate in 1996, has been much luckier in the final phase of his political career. In 2007 he eased past some feckless primary opponents and trounced a Republican governor who was hobbled by scandal; now he faces state Senate President David Williams, who has lost ground since the first polls matched them up.
The depth of Williams’ predicament showed a week ago, when this newspaper’s poll showed his support at 26 percent, closer to independent Gatewood Galbraith’s 8 percent than to Beshear’s 57 percent — and only 30 percent of Republicans had a favorable opinion of Williams. Most answered “neutral” or “no opinion,” but 25 percent said their view of him was unfavorable. (The error margin is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.)
The day after the poll came out, Williams renewed his refrain that the state’s two major newspapers have portrayed him unfairly, damaging his campaign. Yes, he has taken a barrage of editorial criticism, but in the first half of his 12 years as Senate president he sometimes seemed to take pleasure in putting lesser beings in their place — and turned off some folks who could have helped him this year. That’s partly responsible for his poor showing in his own party.
Williams deserves a closer look, beyond the caricatures and ads attacking him. Those of us who have watched him in the legislature since 1985 know that he is one of the most capable and knowledgeable politicians of our time. Even when you don’t agree with him, you can usually see his point.
He was once legislative Democrats’ favorite Republican, voting for education reform and taxes to fund it. But when he became leader of his party and the Senate, he had to hold together a Republican caucus that had only a bare majority and many members who were more conservative than he was, and he had to be the party’s point man against Democratic governors. Meanwhile, his party kept moving to the right, and he moved with it.
When this race began, perhaps the biggest question about Williams was whether, if elected, he would revert to the old David and be a governor like Louie Nunn, a Republican who as a candidate was a partisan brawler but as governor continued and expanded the progressive policies of his immediate predecessors, Democrats Bert Combs and Ned Breathitt.
That question is approaching moot, though the race is likely to tighten, as the special election for governor of West Virginia did last week, after a raft of Republican ads associating the Democratic acting governor with President Barack Obama. Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin lost a big early lead and won by 2 points.
Kentuckians are seeing an anti-Beshear TV barrage by a mysterious entity called Restoring America, which will have some effect, but its ads are off base and sometimes just silly: The line about Kentucky being the worst-run state came from data that reflected historical trends much more than current management; there’s no proof Beshear has paid back utility executives who gave to his campaign; and the assertion that he “has failed to stop President Obama” and “sticks with President Obama” in ways that raise electric bills has no basis in fact. The Republican ads could be a lot tougher; we have yet to see one on abortion, though one is on the radio, or one pointing out that Beshear has said he will support Obama for re-election.
Speaking of Obama: He and Republican congressional leaders got a dire warning last week from The Economist, which is respected worldwide as a moderately conservative, pro-business voice: “Unless politicians act more boldly, the world economy will keep heading towards a black hole.” The editorial criticized rich nations’ “collective obsession with short-term austerity” at a time when stimulus is needed, and the prospect that the U.S. will have “the most stringent fiscal tightening of any big economy in 2012.”
The editorial said Obama “has favored class warfare over fiscal leadership,” but “Republicans are guilty of outrageous obstructionism and misleading simplification.” Sen. Mitch McConnell comes to mind. Like Williams, he has moved right with his party to remain a leader of it, and perhaps of a Senate majority in 2013.
Which brings me to the last big point I made in Danville: McConnell and his allies seem to have adopted as an article of faith the tea party’s maxim of “borrow no more.” That’s on top of “tax no more.” Unless they and Obama can compromise, to prevent a double-dip recession, they will be derelict in their duty to the country. And it’s sad we even have to say that.
Al Cross, former Courier-Journal political writer, is director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky. His opinions are his own, not those of the university.
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