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.

There's more: "And Then There Were Six" >>

Do We Really Need A Governor?

Good Grief, this is a depressing primary season, and no, I'm not talking about the presidential race.

Here in Kentucky, the two Democrats topping the polls for the gubernatorial primary May 22 are the Traitor and the Crook.

Bruce Lunsford, a self-made millionaire who made his fortune by kicking poor old people out of his nursing homes and cheating thousands of investors out of their life savings, is running on the promise that he'll run Kentucky the way he ran his businesses.

God help us.

Lunsford's also claiming to be a "real Democrat" even though he dropped out of the 2003 primary to endorse the Republican nominee - now governor - Ernie Fletcher. He's spent the last four years giving tens of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates.

He's the Traitor, but he's leading the seven Democratic candidates with 20 percent in the most recent polling.

Tied with Lunsford at 20 percent in the polls is the Crook: former Lieutenant Governor Steve Henry, who is currently under investigation by a special prosecutor for playing fast and loose with campaign funds. Henry is married to a former Miss America, Heather French, and is an orthopedic surgeon who pleaded guilty a few years ago to playing fast and loose with Medicare reimbursements.

There are loyal Democrats in this state who will seriously vote for the Republican if either Henry or Lunsford wins the primary.

If they don't kill themselves first.

Another former Lieutenant Governor, Steve Beshear, is at 15 percent in the latest Survey USA poll. But he's getting pounded by Lunsford and others for his support, back in the '90s, of "payday lenders" who prey on poor working people who have no alternatives to paying 400 percent annual interest or more to get cash in advance of their paychecks.

State House Speaker Jody Richards is at 12 percent according to Survey USA, but he's in such bad financial straits he and his running mate, former Secretary of State John Y. Brown III, are reduced to begging their family members (scroll down to 7th graf) for money. Jody's been a no-show at candidate events lately, apparently recovering (or in hiding) from a legislative session that left the House Democrats looking even more feckless than usual. Oh, yeah, his campaign manager defected.

State Treasurer Jonathan Miller, Hope of the Progressives, is languishing at 8 percent. He's doing pretty well with fundraising, and has his third TV ad out, but his poll numbers have people writing him off five weeks before the election.

For pity's sake, Miller's tied with perennial candidate and professional maniac Gatewood Galbraith, who could actually take this primary if the predictions of record-breakingly low turnout are correct.

Listen: people live for politics in this state. In lots of places, you can't even get cable, and politics is the only entertainment. Yet five weeks before the primary, nobody's talking about the election. It's all the crummy spring weather and Don Imus.

It's going to come down to who can get their 14 loyal supporters up off their butts Tuesday morning and out to the polls.

If it rains on primary day, we might have a seven-way tie - three votes each.

There's more: "Do We Really Need A Governor?" >>

Pension Deform - It's Baaaaaaack

Betcha thought the attempt by the Usurper to destroy Social Security was dead and buried.

Nope, it's been dug up, brushed off and lipsticked and put forward as state government pension deform. And it's being road-tested right here in Kentucky.

The state retirement system - for state and county employees, teachers, police, state troopers, firefighters, etc. - is deep in the hole. Estimates of the deficit range from $8 billion to $40 billion, depending on how you count it. That's pretty much the state Gross Domestic Product. You'd have to either quadruple state taxes or shut down most of state government for a couple of decades to make it up.

So, here's the plan state senate republicans came up with: Privatize!

Starting in July, new state employees would no longer receive the defined-benefit pension that is one of the few reasons to put up with the low pay and constant abuse of state government work. Instead, they would have to contribute their own money into the same type of defined contribution plan that is impoverishing workers throughout the country.

Meanwhile, the senate republicans propose borrowing several hundred million dollars to prop up the system for current employees and retirees.

Anybody care to guess how long that will last?

State Treasurer and gubernatorial candidate Jonathan Miller points out that defined contribution plans are way more expensive than defined benefit plans because of the highway-robbery fees the financial management companies charge for them.

Former Lt. Gov. and gubernatorial candidate Steve Beshear, who has represented those same greedy finance companies for the past 20 years, has yet to weigh in on the plan. Gee, I wonder what he'll say?

Everybody loves to hate state employees. But state pension plans are about the last defined-benefit plans left in this country. If they go down, Social Security is next.

There's more: "Pension Deform - It's Baaaaaaack" >>

Dirty Ernie and the Seven Ponies - Part 1

There are seven - count 'em, seven - Democrats fighting for pole position in Kentucky's May gubernatorial primary. Not one of 'em a thoroughbred.

The two top Democrats in Kentucky aren't even in the race. Sixth District Congressman Ben Chandler bowed out once Democrats took back the U.S. House. As the senior Democrat from a red state, he's in tall cotton these days, snagging a plum spot on Appropriations even though he's in only his second term.

State Auditor Crit Luallen - a dedicated public servant with twice the brains and three times the government experience of anybody else in the race - was the first to decline the governor's race, causing a run on Prozac by goo-goo Democrats who forget that politicians of genuine integrity tend not to get far in this state.

Another statewide-elected Democrat is running as second-banana on a no-hoper ticket, a decision that has him being stalked by white-coated gentlemen from Eastern State Mental Hospital. More on the Attorney General tomorrow.

So, who's left? We've got the state Treasurer who's barely old enough to vote, two former Lieutenant Governors with loser reputations, a crooked businessman who specializes in throwing old poor people out of his nursing homes to make room for richer patients, a Speaker of the state house who can't get Democratic bills passed by his own Democratic majority, a gun nut who favors legalizing marijuana and a highway contractor who came in dead last in the 2003 primary.

Are you really going to make me tell you more? Fine. You asked for it.

Treasurer Jonathan Miller is actually not a bad guy, and is the goo-goo crowd's second choice after Luallen. (At 39, he's one of the youngest gubernatorial candidate ever.) His running mate, Irv Maze, is the Jefferson County Attorney who is both successful and popular in Louisville, but unknown elsewhere. Their two big handicaps are geographical - Miller is from Lexington, so they're a Golden Triangle ticket and thus mistrusted by the East and West - and religion - Miller is Jewish.

(Not that Kentuckians are anti-Semitic, it's just that Kentucky Democrats think everybody ELSE is anti-Semitic, and therefore doubt Miller could win the general election in November.)

Former Lieutenant Governor Steve Beshear used to be the goo-goos' champion, but that was back in the '80s, before he lost the 1987 gubernatorial primary. Since then, he's been a lawyer to big financial interests, which doesn't sit well with Defenders of the Poor and Downtrodden. If you want to start a fight among Kentucky Democrats, just mention the name of Beshear's running mate, State Senator Dan Mongiardo. Mongiardo, a physician, came within a whisker of beating incumbent U.S. Senator Jim Bunning in 2004. Doctor Dan's supporters seem to think he deserves Lite Guv as a consolation prize. His detractors say any Democrat worth his salt should have been able to crush the senile Bunning in a landslide, and Mongiardo deserved to lose for co-sponsoring an anti-gay marriage amendment that cost him lots of Democratic votes and failed to gain any others.

Steve Henry was Paul Patton's Lite Guv '95-'03. Another physician, but this one with charges of Medicare fraud to his discredit. His main claim to the Governor's Mansion seems to be that his wife is a former Miss America. We had one of those as First Lady before (Phyllis George Brown, '79-'83), and it wasn't pretty. Henry's running mate is Renee True, the Lexington Property Valuation Administrator, and the only woman running for guv or lite guv. I don't know anything against True, but I do know that after Henry was the first person to declare for governor last year, he had to hold off making it official for MONTHS because he couldn't find a running mate. Just about every dem in the state with a pulse turned him down. He barely got True on board in time for the January 30 filing deadline. I'm not sure what Renee is thinking.

Tomorrow: The Traitor, the Speaker, the Pot Head and the Bullman.

Read Part Two

Get the latest on Kentucky politics at Pol Watchers and Bluegrass Report.

There's more: "Dirty Ernie and the Seven Ponies - Part 1" >>