Posted on 12/01/2003 9:59:57 AM PST by toddst
FRANKFORT - The special election to replace Governor-elect Ernie Fletcher in Congress figures to get more than the customary amount of outside attention, thanks to its timing.
Assuming Fletcher will not delay in issuing the call, the election of his replacement in the 6th District could take place in mid-January.
It apparently would be the first Democrat-Republican contest in the nation and, as happened in Fletcher's recent run for governor, would be scrutinized for signs of President Bush's strength or vulnerability.
Maybe the Democrats will "make this another referendum on Bush," Brian Goettl, the Jessamine County attorney, said at a public forum with Republican candidates last week in Nicholasville.
Democrat Ben Chandler took that tack against Fletcher in the governor's race and failed spectacularly. Goettl and other Republicans seem to relish the prospect that another Democrat will try it, too.
Two other presidential selection exercises -- the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 19 and the New Hampshire primary eight days later -- will rightly command the most national attention. Those are intraparty affairs though; the 6th District election pits the two parties against each other.
Five Republican candidates have emerged so far, four of whom are in the General Assembly: state Sens. Alice Forgy Kerr of Lexington and Tom Buford of Nicholasville and state Reps. Lonnie Napier of Lancaster and Stan Lee of Lexington. The fifth candidate, Chuck Ellinger Jr., is on the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council.
Electors from each county in the district will meet in Frankfort on Dec. 13 to select a nominee.
The Democrats' selection process was not set last week. The party's potential candidates include Chandler and state Auditor Ed Hatchett, who says he is testing the waters. Hatchett made an unsuccessful run for attorney general in the May primary.
Fayette County Attorney Margaret Kannensohn also wants the nomination. Ed Worley, the Senate minority leader from Richmond, has been mentioned.
Other possible candidates are Rep. Bob Damron of Nicholasville and Democratic activist Landra Lewis of Richmond.
The Democratic field shrank last week when two prospective candidates -- state Sens. R.J. Palmer of Winchester and Ernesto Scorsone of Lexington -- took themselves out of contention. Scorsone was the party's nominee in 1998.
At last week's forum in Nicholasville, the Republican candidates talked about their records, compared their conservative credentials and tried, each in turn, to convince the several electors in attendance that he or she had the best chance to win.
All their strategies seem to include fealty to Bush -- his tax cuts, his social issues and his prosecution of the war in Iraq. Those items brought applause throughout the speeches.
But it fell to Goettl, the county attorney, to run down the list of what people most want from their congressional representative.
In fast-growing Jessamine County, the list includes a link to the interstate, help with education and economic development, renovation of Nicholas-ville's downtown, and agricultural diversification as the county makes the transition from rural to urban.
Goettl said Fletcher worked well with local officials and regularly won 75 percent or more of the vote in a county with a Democratic majority because he was attentive to local needs.
"We're not a suburb of Lexington," Goettl said. "We're our own separate entity, and we want to be recognized as such."
My money's on Alice Forgy Kerr as the strongest Republican candidate. Fortunately the Democrats don't have anyone all that great even on the horizon.
>10-4. Plus the KY Dems are arrogant, though less so since their embarassing loss to Ernie Fletcher. Poor babies!
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