And Then There Were Six

Much as I would love this post to refer to the withdrawal from the presidential race of the three republican evolution-deniers – Huckabee, Brownback and Tancredo – and the spontaneous head-explosion of Rudy Guiliani due to terminal abortion confusion, I’m afraid it doesn’t.

The cleanest and most progressive candidate in the Kentucky Democratic Gubernatorial Primary has dropped out. State Treasurer Jonathan Miller announced this afternoon that he is withdrawing and endorsing former Lt. Gov. Steve Beshear.

Two weeks out from the May 22 primary, Miller couldn’t seem to crack double-digits in the polls. The latest poll, from Survey USA last week, showed that not only had Miller dropped from 8 percent to 7 percent, but Party Traitor Bruce Lunsford had jumped from 20 percent to 29 percent.

Given that Lunsford is leading the Democratic candidates despite being a Republican, Miller staying in the race created the very real possibility that November’s general election would lack an actual Democratic candidate.

If you’re thinking Lunsford is the Joe Lieberman of Kentucky – stop. Compared to Lunsford, Lieberman is a paragon of Democratic loyalty. More on Lunsford's perfidy below.

Beshear is the second choice of a lot of Miller supporters and other progressives, including Change for Kentucky/Democracy for America of Kentucky.

But the anti-Lunsford vote is still split among Beshear (23 percent) and four others: former Lt. Gov. Steve Henry at 18 percent, State House Speaker Jody Richards at 9 percent, attorney and gadfly Gatewood Galbraith at 6 percent and demolition contractor Otis Hensley at 1 percent.

Don’t look for either Galbraith or Hensley to quit – they’ve both finished statewide races with less than 10 percent of the vote before, and it doesn’t seem to bother them.

Steve Henry is getting slammed in both the polls (dropping 4 points in two weeks) and the press, as we get to enjoy a new Henry-is-even-more-corrupt-than-we-thought story with our morning coffee just about every day.

That wouldn’t be such a handicap if Henry weren’t defending himself with the most obvious, lame and stupid series of lies since Alberto Gonzales last testified. At this rate, Henry may end up with fewer votes than Otis.

But he won’t drop out. He’s married to a former Miss America, dadgummit, and that means he gets to be governor!

That leaves Jody Richards. I’ve never been a Richards fan – he’s nowhere near bright and he lets the Republican Senate Majority Leader beat him up at will. Ask anybody in Kentucky what’s the best thing about Jody Richards and they’ll all say the same thing:

“He’s nice.”

Yep, just what you want in a candidate going up against the republican attack machine.

Jody: If you must be nice, then be nice to the Democratic voters of Kentucky and drop out now!

Miller’s and Richards’ supporters added to Beshear’s, plus half the undecideds, will put Beshear over the top.

I'm no fan of Beshear's (his lobbying for predatory payday loan companies makes me sick), but he's by far the best candidate left in the race. And that's despite the handicap of his running mate: State Senator Dan Mongiardo, who won the lasting enmity of most Kentucky progressives by sponsoring our lovely gay hate amendment in 2004.

Yes, it matters very much whom the Democrats nominate, even though any one of them could beat incumbent Gov. Ernie Fletcher in November. Well, maybe not Henry.

It's a close call as to which is more important: defeating Fletcher, or defeating Lunsford.

Lunsford’s a multi-millionaire (he sank $8 million into his 2003 primary run before quitting), supposedly willing to put his personal fortune into the general election. That’s why some seriously deluded/desperate Democrats are claiming he has the best chance to beat Fletcher.

Bruce Lunsford made his millions off the backs of two groups: the poor, sick old people he threw out of his nursing homes to make room for richer patients, and the poor, trusting Kentucky families who lost their life savings investing in Lunsford’s company before he bankrupted it.

His vicious ads attacking State Attorney General Ben Chandler in the 2003 gubernatorial primary fatally wounded Chandler in the general election, especially after Lunsford dropped out of the primary and endorsed Ernie Fletcher.

Read that again, slowly: A Democratic primary candidate endorsed the Republican primary winner. After promising to support the Democratic primary winner.

Ernie won, and gave Lunsford a nice job. Since 1995, Lunsford has given more than $40,000 to Republican candidates, and less than $12,000 to Democratic candidates.

Now he wants to be the Democratic nominee.

Ernie Fletcher has been one of the worst governors in Kentucky history. Cleaning up the mess he’s created will take years if not decades and billions of dollars Kentucky doesn’t have. We can’t afford another four months, never mind another four years of Ernie Fletcher.

But a lot of Democrats will be voting for Fletcher – if Bruce Lunsford gets the nomination.