McConnell vs. Stumbo, 15 years too late

There's little doubt that Sen. Mitch McConnell, the titular head of the Republican Party in Kentucky, has his fingerprints all over the 2019 primary for statewide offices.

Forget the claims that he forced Gov. Matt Bevin to ditch Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton from the ticket and replace her with state Sen. Ralph Alvarado. McConnell's real influence can be seen in two downticket races.

Back in 2015, two underfunded GOP candidates with little name recognition came heartbreakingly close to defeating two Democrats from dynastic families in Kentucky politics. State Sen. Whitney Westerfield nearly knocked off Andy Beshear for attorney general, and Steven Knipper just missed out on defeating Alison Lundergan Grimes for secretary of state.

Based on those two strong showings, Westerfield and Knipper should have been considered the front-runners for this year's races. But that wasn't to be. McConnell had other ideas.

In the secretary of state's race, the chosen candidate was Michael Adams. Knipper filed to run again, as did two other candidates, but Adams got the backing of the McConnell machine and ended up winning.

But it's the attorney general's race that is the subject of this examination. Westerfield had filed to run again, but then McConnell protege Daniel Cameron started making noise about getting into the race. Mysteriously, Westerfield's fund-raising began to dry up, and he ended up withdrawing from the ballot. Fellow Senate member Wil Schroeder stepped in, but once again, McConnell's hand-picked candidate won the primary.

This fall, Cameron is facing Greg Stumbo. The former state representative, speaker of the House, and one-term attorney general is seeking to get back on the public payroll after losing his House seat in 2016 in one of the biggest upsets in recent memory. Stumbo's sordid past is well-known, despite his attempts to claim Cameron is lying about his exploits. Fathering a child out of wedlock, failing to pay child support, counter-suing the mother when she finally did seek the arrearage, the disappearing DUI charge, abusing his power as attorney general for political reasons, pushing his hand-picked successor out of the way to get back in the House, leading a coup against Jody Richards to become House speaker, his bizarre speech about "an Arkansas traveler" after the 2015 election -- all this is in the public domain and should not be new news to any Bluegrass political observer.

But the question here is why Mitch McConnell has waited so long to put Greg Stumbo in his sights. The view from here is that he's about 15 years too late in doing so.

Back in 2003, another McConnell-mentored candidate became the first Republican to be elected governor in Kentucky in 32 years. Ernie Fletcher was a congressman who had served as a state representative. As a doctor, veteran, and lay minister, he brought an impressive resume to the table. He won the Republican primary against two strong opponents in large part because of McConnell's support. Then in the general election, he beat Ben Chandler, the grandson of A.B. "Happy" Chandler, who's generally regarded as the best retail politician in Kentucky history.

Unfortunately for Fletcher, Stumbo was elected attorney general. Stumbo's politically-motivated and misguided investigation into merit system hiring practices during Fletcher's administration really doesn't need rehashing here, other than to say that what Fletcher's team was accused of was exactly the opposite of what they were doing. They were trying to reverse years of illegal political influence in hiring for state civil service jobs.

But while Stumbo chipped away at Fletcher's reputation, McConnell remained strangely silent. Perhaps that's because McConnell had placed the biggest troublemaker in his position within the Transportation Cabinet. (Keep in mind that since Republicans had not been in power in Frankfort in more than three decades, the pool of political appointees wasn't very deep. As a result, Republican members of Kentucky's federal delegation -- McConnell, Hal Rogers, etc. -- chose many of those in the non-merit positions that a governor can hire into leadership. It was a McConnell acolyte that caused many of the problems upon which Stumbo pounced; but the truth remains that no state merit employee with status was ever fired for political reasons during Fletcher's term).

As the outrageous statements from Stumbo and his henchmen piled up, McConnell said nothing. Even when asked, he declined to criticize Stumbo or defend Fletcher. He basically hung his governor out to dry.

The most frustrating thing about this was that it was widely known that a vote fraud case that had ensnared state Sen. Johnny Ray Turner was circling around Stumbo. Indeed, his campaign treasurer had told federal investigators that Stumbo had engaged in the same activity that had gotten Turner indicted. Yet that went nowhere.

This was McConnell's trump card; his ace in the hole; that he never played. He had the means to bring Stumbo's investigation screeching to a halt, but he didn't. All he needed to to was to pick up the phone and call the attorney general, "Either you put an end to this foolishness, or my next calls are to the FBI and to President Bush and to tell them to proceed full-speed ahead into expanding that vote-buying investigation."

In the end, Stumbo's evil deeds cost Fletcher his re-election. The Steve Beshear years were a disaster for Kentucky, and now Beshear's son Andy is trying to move up from attorney general to be governor. And Stumbo is trying to succeed Andy Beshear and regain his old seat. There's little doubt that as attorney general, Stumbo would do to Gov. Matt Bevin what he did to Fletcher, or what Baby Beshear has done these past four years.

Any efforts to take Stumbo out are appreciated. And there's no reason not to think that Cameron wouldn't be an excellent attorney general. But I can't help but think, with a great deal of regret, that McConnell should have been this interested in stopping Stumbo and supporting his protege 15 years ago as he seems to be now.