Lots on my plate here locally for politics today, all with national implications. First, Kentucky primary voters go to the polls today to choose candidates to succeed Gov. Dinosaur Steve Beshear, and the race on the GOP side will probably be decided here in the northern end of the state.
Northern Kentucky can swing what is a statistical dead heat for the Republican gubernatorial nomination Tuesday. After all, the region accounts for about 10 percent of the state’s registered GOP voters.
The question is, will voters from the region choose to use that power? They certainly haven’t in the past.
Election officials predict a 10 percent turnout statewide, and turnout in Boone, Campbell and Kenton counties has historically been even less than that in GOP elections since 2000.
So every vote will count in the Republican governor’s race, with three candidates in a statistical dead heat.
Louisville businessman Matt Bevin held a one-point lead over Agriculture Commissioner James Comer in the most recent Bluegrass Poll released last week. And Comer held a one-point lead over former Louisville City Councilman Hal Heiner. Former Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Will T. Scott is in a distant fourth with 8 percent. And with 14 percent undecided and a margin of error of 4 percentage points, it’s anyone’s race.
Bevin’s base is here in the NKY, so getting turnout here is the key to him getting the win. He’s also the biggest crackpot in the race, too nuts even for most of the GOP (as he was crushed in last year’s 2014 Senate primary against Mitch the Turtle) and if he should eke out a win here, it’s going to be Democrat Jack Conway’s race to lose. At least, that’s the plan…
Meanwhile, across the river, Attorney General Loretta Lynch will be in Cincinnati today, kicking off President Obama’s efforts to improve police relations in the US.
The U.S. attorney general is looking to Cincinnati as a model for how police departments should operate.
Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch is traveling around the country, highlighting “collaborative programs and innovative policing practices.”
Her visit later today comes as some American cities grapple with distrust between their residents and police forces. The distrust and anger have boiled over in some places , in light of several recent police-related deaths of black men.
Cincinnati’s Collaborative Agreement is often looked to as a model for how police departments should work with the communities they serve. It was forged in the wake of the police shooting death of Timothy Thomas in spring 2001. His death sparked riots in Cincinnati’s historic Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, where Thomas was shot and killed; the community’s reaction was a flashpoint that uncovered long-simmering tensions and frustrations between residents and police, and eventually led to reforms in the city’s police department.
Lynch is looking to Cincinnati for ways to “advance public safety, strengthen police-community relations and foster mutual trust and respect.”
Well before Ferguson, South Charleston, and Cleveland made news, the shooting death of Timothy Thomas and the resulting days of protest during April 2001 in Cincinnati made national headlines. The country’s focus changed sharply just a few months later on September 11th, but people here haven’t forgotten. While the city still has a long way to go, things are markedly different now.
There is some hope at least.
debbie
Matt Bevin is Glenn Beck’s particular favorite. I’d almost like to see him win just to see the ensuing chaos, but I wouldn’t wish the man on anyone.
Botsplainer
Bevin’s platform is to destroy KyNECT (Kentucky’s health exchange), crush the pensions of already retired state employees and to drown Kentucky’s government in the bathtub.
The man is a Teatard’s teatard.
NotMax
Fingers crossed that is not pronounced Nookie.
Botsplainer
Oh, and Zandar? Here in the leftmost outer wing of KY-04 next to the People’s Democratic Socialist Sharia Islamist Kenyan Gay Republic of Louisville, Bevin signs litter the right of way but few yards in this R+10 county, FWIW.
MomSense
@Botsplainer:
Signs don’t vote!
/Obama campaign 2007
Betty Cracker
So for KY Democrats, is the plan to hope Bevin wins because he’s too crazy to carry the state in the general? I’ve been in that situation before as a voter, and it’s a scary thing because, while you hope the Dems are in the best position to win, it’s unnerving to have a crackpot with a non-zero chance of actually being elected.
Botsplainer
@MomSense:
My take on it was that illegal right-of-way sign litterage equates to less love than Bevin actually feels, and that primary polls in crowded state primaries are usually shit because they’re done cheap.
Zandar
@NotMax: “En Kay Why”, usually. Kentucky has roughly 4.4 million people, but more than half live in the triangle formed by interstates 64,71, and 75 between Lexington, Louisville, and Florence/Newport, plus the Frankfort area on 64.
The rest are Real ‘Muricans(tm).
MomSense
@Botsplainer:
Yeah, campaign volunteers drop signs in visible places. I would guess that yard signs for a candidate mean more but I have often found spouses and kids who do not vote like the yard sign would suggest. Primary polling for state races is not great. You could always pull a Noonan and drink a bottle of bourbon (you are in Kentucky), stumble outside, lick your finger, and then see how it feels to you. That has been a good gig for her and it doesn’t matter if you get it right.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
Behave.
Said in my best, which is terrible, Austin Powers voice.
Zandar
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, it’s terrifying indeed. The last Republican governor we had in the last 44 years was Ernie Fletcher, and he crashed and burned eight years ago due to a massive (relative to Kentucky) cronyism scandal and Dinosaur Steve won by double digits.
I’m hoping for the same thing here with Conway wiping the floor with Bevin, who can’t help going Todd Akin on everything.
Regardless, all of the GOP candidates for Governor have vowed to destroy Kynect, our wildly successful insurance exchange. Bevin in particular claims it’ll bankrupt the state within a few short years. He’d be right, as Bevin also wants to get rid of the state income tax that’s currently paying for it.
NotMax
@Zandar
Hm. Came across this tidbit a while back.
kindness
It’s funny but when I think of Kentucky I think east/west not north/south. But I’m not a Southern boy so….
rikyrah
thanks for the info, Zandar
PaulW
The turnout is going to be 10 percent.
This is not a majority decision being made, this is the extremists voting while the disconnected, disinterested residents stay home either due to disgust at their choices or just pure apathy.
This is insane. We should be electing to office people who can claim in all honesty that enough people voted for them.
Every no-show voter should be counted as a vote of No Confidence in the party hosting the primary, and if there’s enough of them then NONE of the candidates should advance, and the party leadership be forced out to incompetence and failure to appeal to the citizenry.
PaulW
@Betty Cracker:
Betty and I can speak to the horror of having a crackpot win – twice – because voters refused to vote sane.
God-damn you, Florida. Rick “Medicare Fraud” Scott. TWICE. We deserve to sink into the ocean when he succeeds in killing off 800,000 Medicaid-qualified in-need residents.
MomSense
@PaulW:
I’m not a fan of the crackpot strategy since we ended up with twice elected LePage.
Elizabelle
@PaulW: Maybe we should have elections and primaries where no one wins if the voter turnout does meet 50% of registered voters, which is a damn low bar.
Stop the 10% lunatic fringe polluting our politics.
Also, perhaps Kentucky and other states should hold their gubernatorial elections during federal election years. This offyear voting was not arrived at by accident.
Make politicians more accountable to all registered voters.
Elizabelle
@PaulW: I don’t like overbroad statements like “we deserve to sink into the ocean”.
The voters who voted for Rick Scott deserve to sink into the ocean, true. It will happen soon enough, for some of them.
But there’s too much collateral damage ahead for those who did not. And why slap someone who did turn out and desperately tried to change things by voting? They don’t deserve sinking into the ocean. Or having their life shortened/made harder by a treatable condition, but no Medicaid expansion and health insurance not affordable.
Zandar
@PaulW: This is especially true since Kentucky’s 40% + 1 primary runoff rule for Governor was repealed in 2008. It’s entirely possible that the GOP candidate will win with something like 35% of the vote.
Dinosaur Steve won the Dem primary in 2007 with 41%.
@MomSense: I’m not either, but we don’t have much of a choice. Every fourth word out of the GOP between tomorrow and November 3 will be “Obama” and words two and three will be “Gay Marriage” no matter who wins today.
If Conway makes the same mistakes he did in 2010 vs Rand Paul and that Alison Grimes made last year (pretending President Obama doesn’t exist, for example) then it’s going to be a brutal four years here.
Eric U.
@Elizabelle: there is no way that the republicans would allow canceling off-year elections. It’s the only reason they hold power
MomSense
@Zandar:
I hear you. I’m actually planning to move. It really stinks because this is my home but I can’t afford to stay here and there is not enough opportunity for my kids. Hopefully I can retire here–but retiring is a big if.
Elizabelle
@Eric U.: Exactly. And I wish there could be a campaign to change so that more voters vote and are engaged. Make it about the voters; no need to bring up partisan implications.
I support the Duke prof who thinks we’d be better off canceling the Federal midterms too. You get a presidential year electorate that votes one administration into power, and a much tinier and more radical midterm electorate that votes to obstruct.
Obviously, the presidential year electorate has to get smarter. But I guess cynicism and apathy are attractive qualities? (Not?)
Elizabelle
@MomSense: Where you thinking on moving?
Good luck. Sane decision, and maybe easier winter weather.
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
I’m not sane when it comes to weather. Massachusetts.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Zandar: I’d like to believe Conway’s now smarter than that.
Kathleen
I went to a seminar last Friday featuring Common Cause and other groups that have succeeded in getting the Ohio legislature to pass a bill (Issue 1) to change how districts are drawn. There was lots of interesting information, but one of the statements made was that in states with gerrymandered districts, the primaries become the general election. Ohio ranks third from the bottom in states with poorly drawn gerrymandered districts. Boehner’s proposal for redrawing districts would have put Ohio last. I don’t know where Kentucky falls out on that list and if gerrymandering is a factor in electoral results. OT, panelists also shared some interesting insights regarding how some business leaders and Republicans in the state are tired of the Tea Party dragging the party down. Fascinating discussion.
Botsplainer
@Zandar:
The state House is sufficiently blue dog-gy that even with a slight Dem majority there, we’ll see some really stupid things with a GOP governor, like the end of Louisville’s fairness ordinances and various community development programs.
Frankensteinbeck
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Having watched the election up close, I don’t think it was possible for Conway to win. Rand Paul was a terrible candidate, a truly godawful candidate, and Conway went after him hammer and tongs, but we have to accept the truth: Kentucky is a cesspool of racism, and hates Obama, hates him with a burning, unholy passion. I do not doubt that a large majority of Kentucky whites will consciously vote to destroy Kynect – which they do love – if that’s what it takes to destroy Obamacare.
In 2012, Romney won Kentucky 61% to 38%. Rand Paul in 2010, which should have been much kinder, only got 55.7%. It’s still a landslide. Kentucky vomits up bile every day because a black man is in the white house.
Paul in KY
Bevins up 84 votes this morning. Sure hope he wins, as that’s who I think Jack Conway can really run against.