Between taking some time off and spending some working time on the routine chores of putting the H-L editorial and oped pages together, the old Kurmudgeon has left his blog somewhat idle lately. Let’s remedy that by catching up on a few issues today.
1. National Republican leaders continue to treat U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning like a pariah. His approval rating hovers down there in the “Brrr!” numbers. The most recent polling showed him trailing in head-to-head match-ups with both the “name’ contenders for the Democratic senatorial nomination. The finance reports he and Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo filed recently reflected a political rarity: an incumbent trailing a challenger in early fund-raising.
All the hits Bunning has been taking suggest that, if the 2010 Senate race were one of the Major League games he pitched, it would be the one where he suffered his rockiest first inning. But he’s still in the game and shows no signs of handing the ball over to a Republican reliever voluntarily. If he does insist on completing the game, he’s the type of candidate who probably can’t lose a Republican primary but can’t win the general election. If you’re Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and you’re trying to keep Democrats from gaining a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority, nightmares don’t get any worse than that.
2. Some of the current Frankfort scuttlebutt suggests any special session dealing with next year’s anticipated revenue shortfall will be delayed until September to avoid any conflict with legislators’ summer vacation plans and to allow more time to assess just how bad the shortfall will be. But the problem with a September session is that, the closer you get to the January filing deadline for the 2010 elections, the more difficult it will be to get lawmakers to cast hard votes on revenue. Better to give voters six months to forgive and forget rather than three. Besides, other scuttlebutt heard around Frankfort suggests the revenue projections Gov. Steve Beshear will receive in early May could be so dire that a three-month delay in addressing them wouldn’t be feasible. So, if you’re one of those folks whose calendars revolve around legislative activity, I’ll pass along the word I got last week: Keep your summer vacation plans flexible.
3. When Transportation Cabinet officials realized they made a couple mistakes in recent merit hires, they backed up and took some do-overs. If former Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s administration had reacted the same way when its merit problems surfaced, he could easily be in his second term today.
4. Whatever you do this Derby Week, do not commit the sacrilege of using the nectar of the gods known as bourbon in one of those gosh-awful mint julep concoctions.
Larry Dale Keeling, a columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader, has spent most of his 35-plus years in journalism reporting on or writing editorials and columns about Kentucky’s politics and political issues. He now brings his experience and expertise on those topics to the KyKurmudgeon blog.
BS on #3 Larry. How do you back up and do over something a grand jury empaneled by your political enemy is investigating?
If the Fletcher administraion had said, “We made mistakes,” and then followed through by correcting those mistakes, the grand jury would have gone home in a couple of weeks.
ldk