May 16, 2007 — Those who think the primary races for governor are boring just need to look closer and wait for the final week.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Some complain the governor’s race is a “yawner.” It’s true voters appear only recently to have begun taking notice but that means the final week will just be more exciting. Still, even if it’s been boring thus far, there are interesting aspects to this race.
Published polls so far have shown both parties oddly inclined to nominate the ticket the other side most wants as an opponent in the fall. Bruce Lunsford and Greg Stumbo have topped those polls in the Democratic primary. (That may be changing as signs point to movement by Steve Beshear and Daniel Mongiardo, but no polls have been released to back up the impression that Beshear has drawn even or overtaken Lunsford.)
Anyone who has spent time around Gov. Ernie Fletcher knows he must lie awake at night dreaming of running against Stumbo. That’s the head-to-head race he’s always wanted, but Lunsford-Stumbo is close enough. Either of Fletcher’s Republican challengers, Anne Northup or Billy Harper, would welcome that race as well. Their second choice is Steve Henry, whom fellow Democrat and wit Gatewood Galbraith Thursday described as having “a special prosecutor attached at the hip.” For most of the campaign, Henry ran first or second to Lunsford in the polls although he appears to be fading as Beshear rises.
The Democratic candidates can’t wait to take on Fletcher who leads Northup in polling. Not one of them wants to face Northup who has tried hard to impress this upon Republican primary voters. But it hasn’t seemed to work thus far although there are signs she may be narrowing the gap. Candidates with 20-point leads cruising to election – as the Fletcher campaign claims it is – don’t often go negative against their opponents – as the Fletcher campaign has done.
Beshear’s campaign recalls a couple of past Democratic primaries. When Beshear last ran for governor in 1987, he and John Y. Brown Jr. traded negative ads while Wallace Wilkinson used organization and the promise of the lottery to pay for education needs to slip past both. Now, Beshear offers “limited, expanded gaming” as the cure for Kentucky’s fiscal needs and declines to attack Lunsford and other Democratic foes. He even uses the same theme as Wilkinson, “Putting Kentucky First.”
Jonathan Miller’s withdrawal and endorsement of Beshear – with the active help and urging of former Gov. Brereton Jones – in some ways recalls the 1959 Democratic primary. Then it was former Gov. Earle Clements who brokered a deal between two gubernatorial aspirants, persuading Wilson Wyatt to support Bert Combs who then defeated Harry Lee Waterfield, the hand-picked candidate of Happy Chandler. Wyatt won election as Lieutenant Governor.
Maybe those who find the race boring just don’t know how to look at it. But they also don’t seem to realize there is no such thing as a boring primary race for governor in Kentucky. That’s an oxymoron.
Ronnie Ellis writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort, Ky. He may be contacted by email at rellis@cnhi.com.
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