Good Old Boys in Kentucky

Political Mavens ^ | 11/07/2007 | Mike Long

[Theodore R.]

Sometimes I think ol’ Alben W. Barkley and Earle Clements are still “in charge” in KY — ruling from their graves.

[Wuli]

“Whether he found his place in dirty politics, or dirty politics found its place in him, when Fletcher assumed power in Frankfort, he became just another corrupt Kentucky politician.”

I am not inclined to, or informed enough to, disagree. I would only offer the other point the author offered - the man who replaced Fletcher participated in a charade of “the pot calling the kettle black” and, in matters of ethics, is, and will be shown to be, no improvement over Fletcher.

If I were to rate anyone as the most error-prone in the election-results, it would not be an individual. It would be the GOP leadership in Kentucky, for not having admitted Fletcher’s errors and, as a body, backed a different GOP candidate, demonstrated the political past of the Dim candidate as not having what it takes to move forward. Instead, like the political class all over the country, they seem to show more support for their own - the political class, of either party - than for the electorate.

The GOP base wrote, faxed and Emailed their GOP reps in Washington D.C., from 2000, through 2004 to 2006, complaining of their wasteful spending, and due to the GOP reps deaf ear on issues like that and on illegal immigration, many in the GOP, too many, voted not for Dims in 2006, but for third parties or stayed home - giving the Dims a greater party turn-out in the face of not a GOP-base trend toward the Dims, but simply disaffection with their own.

Maybe the Kentucky GOP leaders (as only one state example) and the GOP reps in Washington D.C. have failed to realize they are losing not because the Dims are winning, but because they (the GOP reps) are not listening to their own people (they listen more to the media).

[fieldmarshaldj]

Well, you’re going to have to be more specific to what you’re alleging here. As I said, even a slightly damaged Fletcher is 200% better than the likes of Beshear-Mongiardo.

[Wuli]

“I heard Laura Ingraham talking about this today, and she pointed out that a lot of the moral issues are what puts fire in the bellies of many stalwart conservative crusaders, and when you divide that from the Republican base (more monetary/national policy than moral issues), you’re not going to get a majority again for some time.”

That divide CAN be bridged, in the GOP, and the key to that bridge is the judiciary and its lawyer friends, because that is where the source of many of our different complaints, social conservative and general regulatory derive so much satisfaction in opposition to many GOP positions.

Even the constitutional error of Roe can be argued on a completely secular Constitutional basis. The the over-reaching abuse of the Commerce Clause by Congress, that so adversely affects the business community is again centered on our judiciary who refuses to exercise the purpose of any “independence” its has - defending the written Constitution from an errant Congress that has not gone through the Constitutional process to create the form of mandate needed to change it - the amendment process. The abrogation, by the courts, of the individual rights in eminent domain cases morphs all the way into “environmental” regulation which at times morph completely into the taking of land for “public use” while the individual must still pay his mortgage and taxes on it in spite of the fact he no longer controls it.

Conservatives have got to acknowledge that bridge, the judiciary, and get passionate about it, as Reagan was, because when we ignore it, it, the judiciary is diminished further by new Dim appointments. In my view, it, the judiciary has been even more destructive than Congress or the POTUS - whoever has been there.

I don’t disagree with you or Laura’s observation, in the general sense. What I have done is look in myself and see what unites me to social conservatives, libertarians, fiscal conservatives and free enterprise and the one place they all have enemies is the judiciary. If they want to ignore that bridge and let someone else appoint judges, they do so at their collective peril. Has the GOP always appointed well. No, but in my view they tried to do better and with Bush we were actually getting better. Let’s keep that up - it alone is worth diminishing the divisions to insignificance.