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Storms of 2008: Tornadoes and Politics--Debris Everywhere!
Storms of 2008: Tornadoes and Politics--Debris Everywhere!

News Perspective
by Ivan Potter
Clinton, KY.

It was Tuesday, February 5th, 2008. For a political junkie, it was a perfect day. Life was good. The polls in Kentucky had just closed. The time was a little after 6:00 pm. I had just placed my steak dinner in a strategic position between my wine glass and the TV remote. Then before the first bite, all hell broke loose!

Lightning came first, sending the outside cats runnning for cover. Then fierce winds tore at the yard. Rushing to the back door I watched the cat food trays fly by, spilling their dry cat food in the wind. All I could do was stare at the dark clouds rolling in from the Southwest.

“Damn. This is going to be bad.” I told myself, as two of the lawn chairs flew off into the dark shadows of oncoming night. Having spent part of my youth in Conway, Arkansas, I had seen the hell caused by storm clouds, just like the ones now bearing down on the small community of Clinton, Kentucky.

For the past three years, I have stood and watched four tornadoes move toward our small town and then, at the last minute, turn northeast and miss us by a mile or two.

WPSD Channel 6 (Paducah) weather team use the news hour to show the actual tracking of the major possible tornadoes cells moving through west Kentucky. Graves County, Murray, the Lakes area were being subjected to reports of damaging winds and possible tornadoes.

The satellite TV signal was lost most of the time. It wasn’t untill sometime near 8:00o'clock that I had hard news about any of Kentucky races. A friend from Frankfort called to tell me that the Governor’s man in the 30th House district had been beaten.

It was hard to speak. Words failed me. I had been told just this morning that this race was going to be the Governor’s crowning show piece to bring together his election mandate, his power as the new boss in town, and the place to prove that anticasino forces could be stopped.

Rain that sounded like hail beat against the windows, as my friend expressed his thoughts on the Governor’s defeat. With his 30 years of watching Frankfort politics he said, “Power went to their heads! Beshear’s team made the local Democratic Parties mad at them.”

He added, ”In the process of destroying the local Democratic structure in this district, these Frankfort agents allowed David Williams and Mitch McConnell to bring in the churches. They preached from the pulpits against the evils of casino gambling. Beshear’s team had turned this local race into a vote on the evils of old time muscle hard ball politics and sin (casino gambling).”

Wow!

This was more than I could process at one time. So I told my friend to call me when he had any news about Will Coursey and the elections results for the 6th House seat. With that I hung up.

TV by this time had come back on. John McCain looked like the night's winner for the Republicans. Another big surprise was that the Democrats had not selected a front runner. Clinton and Obama will have to fight it out all the way to the convention.

Wow! What a night.

The Republicans have a front runner. The Democrats are still fighting for front runner status and Governor Beshear was wounded by the Kentucky Republicans. All this in one night.

The storms that came in the night had passed, leaving a trail of destruction and death. By the light of the next day’s dawn storm damage was everywhere. 22 tornadoes had touched down in 17 Kentucky counties, killing seven people. These storms damaged statewide 494 houses, of which 254 were major damages. Another 99 homes had been destroyed during the night.

Governor Beshear move quickly to request federal disaster aid.

As I walk the streets of this small western Kentucky town, I wonder if the national and statewide political storms of 2008 will have mercy on this very small outpost of humanity, struggling to find its place in this new century.

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