| 28 Days to Go: Strategy for End Games |
Ivan C. Potter
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28 Days to Go: Strategy for Campaign End Games
By Ivan Potter
Election 2007 Editorial
It is October and the campaigns for all statewide Kentucky constitutional offices are in their last stages. In the crude language of politics, this time period is called the End Game. After months of hard hitting tactics beating back primary challengers and raising millions of dollars, the next 28 days will decide who will take Kentucky into the 21st Century.
Due to the past seven years of political wars, Kentucky has been slow entering the future.
The Republicans, with Governor Fletcher, had four years to lead Kentucky out of the post Patton era. Governor Paul Patton’s (1995-2003) last years in office were a complete political and leadership disaster. Under Patton, the Kentucky Democratic Party imploded. Local county Democratic committees were allowed to fall apart without any attempt to establish a true statewide political network.
One of the major political sins from the Patton years is that his administration failed to prepare the state or the Democratic Party for the future. The Republicans moved in quickly with their win in 2003. The Republican Party and newly-elected Governor Fletcher brought a new philosophy of government to Kentucky state government. That philosophy promised change and a better way of leading the state. To date, neither has taken place.
Republicans won in 2003 because the Democrats lost sight of who they were or where their power base was located.
The Democrats became tired as a party and as individuals. In 2007, it is now the Republicans who must wear the mantle of failure with regard to state government leadership.
Many rank and file Kentucky Republicans want to be conservative, however, with President Bush, the war, threat of a recession, a bloated federal government, fear of just about everything, lack of sound health care policy, seniors on fixed incomes, $80.00 dollar a barrel gasoline (up from $40 a barrel when George Bush took office), no jobs, and the housing market meltdown, these same Kentucky Republicans just want to hide until the election is over.
The end game over the next 28 days will be brutal. Over 2.5 million dollars from both sides will blast 30 second TV commercials out across Kentucky. The Beshear theme will be not to make any mistakes with safe messages about family, education, and hope for the future. They will spend a lot of time and money reacting to the Fletcher media war wagon.
Only two candidates on the Republican side have the ability to bring out the passions of their traditional base: Ernie Fletcher and Stan Lee.
Governor Fletcher and Stan Lee will make their last stand in West Kentucky and Northern Kentucky. They will try to block Beshear in Central Kentucky while attacking him in their regions of power. After running with the casino attack campaign and now the Central Kentucky Insurance so-called scandal, Fletcher and Lee will attack on “true Kentucky family values” code words to invoke the very conservative voters of west and northern Kentucky to beat back the Democratic liberals. Fletcher will link Beshear to the campaign of Hillary Clinton for President.
Lee, candidate for Attorney General will combine his campaign themes with those of Fletcher. Lee knows that his best chance of beating Jack Conway in the Attorney General’s race will be to bring out every conservative voter possible. The issues in the Attorney General’s race are very clear cut between very conservative Lee to those of more moderate Conway.
The final themes of the campaigns will be:: a rural conservative “family values” governor or an urban “liberal business” governor.
Right or wrong, this will be the choice that decides the election.
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