Matt Bevin: Striking fear in the hearts of Democrats and establishment Republicans alike

It’s hard to tell who’s more frightened of Matt Bevin winning the governor’s race: Kentucky Democrats, who are used to controlling the reins of state government; or establishment Republicans, who fear not being invited to the party as he sets up his administration.

The reason Democrats are terrified is easy to discern. They don’t want to lose their grip on patronage hiring, awarding of contracts, spending on governmental programs and the other trappings of power that they’ve come to expect as their birthright in the commonwealth.

It would be awful if the local Democrat chairman can’t decide who should get scarce state jobs in the local highway garages or social services offices. If bigwigs in Frankfort can’t reward donors with contracts, which are often hidden inside other contracts that are written in such a way so as to remove any chance of competitive bidding, they’ll be unable to wield power. And if funding is cut for their pet programs, they lose the opportunity to keep voters beholden to them.

But why are some Republicans so scared? If they are really opposed to the policies that would be continued or implemented during a Jack Conway administration, why are so many expressing reservations about Bevin?

The obvious answer is that there’s little difference between a Democrat and an establishment Republican, which is why they’ve been given the derisive nickname of RINO, for “Republican In Name Only.” But is something else going on? Are there petty jealousies involved? Most likely, yes.

One well-known Republican columnist, who has a reputation for being a Mitch McConnell sycophant, has written several opinion pieces blasting Bevin and expressing doubts if he’d be any better of a governor than Conway. He, apparently, has not gotten over the fact that Bevin dared to challenge his political idol in an attack from the right flank in last year’s U.S. Senate primary.

And another well-respected columnist, whose work appears in several papers across the state, has published allegations that several unnamed Republican officials and party leaders are worried that Bevin would bring in a number of Tea Party types and others who are unfamiliar with how Frankfort works.

And this is a bad thing? After nearly four decades of almost-continuous one-party control, Frankfort needs an enema. The capital city is full of people who are wed to inefficient and wasteful bureaucratic policies and procedures. There is a “we’ve always done it this way” mentality that needs to be exterminated. The one-size-fits-all approach the state uses is too inflexible to deal with real-world situations. The entire system needs to be overhauled from top to bottom.

Entrenched interests won’t get it done. Outsiders with fresh, bold ideas are required to make the changes Kentucky needs.  Establishment Republicans haven’t been able to change Washington, D.C. They’ve had control of Congress for two years now, yet they haven’t forced President Obama’s hand on anything yet. Why not try Tea Party ideas? Do the RINOs really think they have the answers, especially when the base of the party has a hard time telling a RINO from a Democrat these days?

The establishment has a jealous grip on its control of the GOP. Look at how poorly they’ve treated constitutional crusaders like Ted Cruz. And recall how righteously indignant McConnell’s troops were when Bevin ran against him last year and called him out for his anti-conservative actions.

Despite Jamie Comer’s bizarre speech at a non-political event long before the governor’s race even started about how he couldn’t be controlled, and despite the general wisdom that he was sympathetic to Tea Party causes, most of the state’s GOP establishment had lined up behind him in the primary. No doubt, his administration would have been comprised of many old-line Republicans that often dance to the same puppet masters as do the Democrats. That all changed when Comer torpedoed both his own candidacy and that of rival Hal Heiner late in the campaign, paving the way for Bevin.

And now, the establishment frets that it won’t be business as usual in Frankfort. And that’s a good thing. Real change requires real change agents, and the same old faces and ideas won’t get it done.

If recalcitrant Republicans allow Conway to be elected just because Bevin’s not a good ol’ boy who plays by the same go-along-to-get-along rules that McConnell and John Boehner do in D.C., then they’ll have no one but themselves to blame. Surely, they can’t think that a Bevin administration that espouses what Republican ideals are supposed to be would be worse than a Conway administration that stands in opposition to everything they hold dear. But power, and the desire to hold on to it, makes people do strange things.

The enigma that is Rand Paul

(Note: This column originally appeared in some Kentucky newspapers the week of July 27.)

Rand Paul is somewhat of an enigma.

He’s a favorite of many conservatives, yet he espouses positions that sound like they’d be right at home in the platforms of Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

He’s seemingly changed his stance on so many issues that it’s hard to determine where he stands on some of them, getting a reputation among some of his detractors that he thrives on telling differing audiences exactly what they want to hear.

He’s tried to establish a bit of independence from his father, former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul, yet he relies on his father’s network of supporters and donors while at the same time trying to appeal to voters who aren’t fans of his dad’s brand of politics.

As one of the first announced presidential candidates, he spent some time at the top of the polls, but he’s taken a back seat lately as candidates with broader appeal (Scott Walker), establishment support (Jeb Bush) or a penchant for bombastically speaking truths (Donald Trump) have entered the race.

And he’s always asserted that being a Kentucky senator is his first priority, even as he started plotting a run for president almost as soon as his improbable election to the Senate in 2010 was certified.

It’s that last bit that has some people wondering, since the announcement last week that Paul will be skipping Kentucky’s most storied political event, the Fancy Farm picnic so he can campaign for president in New Hampshire, just how committed he is to defending his Senate seat.

That Fancy Farm revelation has some political pundits and observers wondering just how sincere Paul’s commitment to his re-election bid really is. Despite its location in a remote corner of the Jackson Purchase area in far western Kentucky, miles away from any major media markets, Fancy Farm is the “can’t miss” shindig for Bluegrass State political figures. And with elections for statewide offices on the ballot this year, there will be considerable interest in this year’s festivities.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned Paul’s push to have Kentucky Republicans switch from a primary election to a caucus to allow him to get around Kentucky’s law that would only allow him to run for one office at a time. The change to a caucus is not a done deal. State GOP leaders will be deciding within the next few weeks whether or not to move forward with that plan, and there is some opposition to it. If the party does not approve a caucus, then Paul will definitely have to decide whether he wants to pursue his presidential ambitions, or try to remain Kentucky’s junior senator.

Some are beginning to wonder if Paul’s inattention to his re-election efforts might allow a well-funded and aggressive Democrat to sneak in and claim the seat. Although no Democrat has yet announced an intention to run yet, several names have been floated. The Democrats have always prized having the controls of state government more than federal offices, though, so it’s most likely that any of them who are thinking of running next year will wait until after November’s elections to announce.  And it’s further possible that the likely candidates are running for statewide office this year (Alison Lundergan Grimes and Adam Edelen being two of the most oft-mentioned.)

Mitch McConnell still has a tenuous hold on control of the state GOP, despite a number of well-publicized stumbles in the last few years. One of his staffers was recently named executive director of the Republican Party of Kentucky. McConnell and Paul have a well-documented relationship that has always been a bit contentious. McConnell supported Trey Grayson over Paul in the 2010 GOP senatorial primary, but came on board for the general election. McConnell has voiced his support for Paul’s presidential aspirations, but no doubt his loyalties lie with Bush or another establishment candidate, as their views mesh better with McConnell’s than do Paul’s. McConnell has also thrown his support behind the idea of a presidential caucus, but given the fickle nature of McConnell’s loyalties, that could change. (Don’t believe me about that? Ask former Gov. Ernie Fletcher about that subject. Or former U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning.) McConnell and Paul recently had a well-publicized spat over surveillance issues that got a lot of attention nationally.

The next few weeks will be critical to Paul’s presidential campaign. They may also prove critical to his senatorial re-election bid. He may be forced, via one reason or another, to choose between them. How it all turns out will be as interesting to Kentucky political observers as the Donald Trump phenomenon now is on the national scene.

Trump energizes the GOP’s base but gives the party establishment heartburn

Donald Trump is not going to be the Republican nominee for president. That’s all but certain. But his presence in the GOP primary is certainly making things interesting.

Trump’s entry into the race has energized much of the party’s base of conservative voters, who are tired of the party’s leaders and establishment pandering to liberal interests, especially on the subject of illegal immigration. But to the powers that be, Trump is a nightmare because he is challenging the party’s hierarchy on a matter where the leaders and their constituency are not on the same page.

By and large, conservatives oppose illegal immigration. They want the nation’s borders secured and illegal aliens prosecuted, and if possible, deported. They are tired of seeing jobs taken away from American citizens by illegals who will work for under-the-table payments. They see the national security threat posed by the flood of people who cross the border illegally. They also recognize that there is a process for immigrants to come here legally, and they want that process honored. They cringe at any mention of amnesty for illegal immigrants already in the country.

On the other hand, the party’s establishment and its big donors turn a blind eye to the problem. They don’t mind the influx of cheap labor. If they can get by with paying illegals less than the minimum wage, they’re all for that.  They don’t want to lose their existing labor force, so they favor a system by which people already in the country illegally can get to stay.

Donald Trump is challenging their positions and making them uncomfortable. They don’t want to have to defend their support for “comprehensive immigration reform,” which is code for “let the illegals stay.” Therefore, there have been calls for Trump to tone down his rhetoric and an insistence that he not be allowed to participate in any presidential debates, the first of which is scheduled for next month. They point to all the outreach they’ve been trying to do to court the Hispanic vote, and they fear that Trump will undo all their efforts. It’s interesting that one candidate who hasn’t criticized Trump, Ted Cruz, has Hispanic lineage.

No one, other than an illegal alien, should take any offense at what Trump said. He wasn’t addressing those who have immigrated here lawfully, have all proper documentation, and aren’t breaking any laws. The GOP establishment acts so fearful that Trump will chase Hispanics away from the Republican Party. Don’t they listen when those who came here legally and went through the process as prescribed in law express outrage and resentment at those who came illegally?

Because Trump expressed a strong opinion on a subject most politicians from both parties would rather avoid, he’s suffered some business backlash. His response has been a thing of beauty. When NASCAR announced that it would not hold its season-ending awards banquet at a Trump property because of pressure from the sponsor of its truck racing series, Trump rubbed NASCAR’s nose in it. He said that he would simply keep their sizeable deposit for the use of his facility and then rent it out to someone else and make even more money in the process.

Trump isn’t the ideal Republican candidate. While he may be causing headaches for the establishment and delighting the party’s conservative base in the process, there are significant weaknesses in his candidacy. While he’s certainly not on the list of candidates for whom I wouldn’t vote under any circumstance (right now Rand Paul, Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham and Chris Christie are the primary occupants of that slate), and he’s not among my favorites (Ted Cruz is head and shoulders above everyone else on that list), I’d certainly have to give strong consideration to him should he survive the primary process.

But that’s not likely. The party hierarchy and the establishment will be gunning for him. They all seem to be gravitating toward Bush, but perhaps this will be the year the Republicans nominate a true conservative after the failures of moderate-to-liberal candidates in the last two presidential elections. If John McCain and Mitt Romney couldn’t win, why should anyone think Jeb Bush can?

In the meantime, it will be fun to sit back and watch Trump make the GOP establishment squirm. It’s time they got the message that the party doesn’t want to be led from the top down, but they want the party’s leaders to reflect the grassroots sentiment. So far, Trump has tapped into that populist sentiment, and the entertainment value is priceless.

Government gets in its own way, and my hometown suffers as a result

Beattyville, my hometown, was rocked a few weeks ago by the news that Lee Adjustment Center would be closing at the end of June.

The private prison, owned by Corrections Corporation of America, is one of the largest private employers in the area. After CCA lost a contract renewal bid to house prisoners from Vermont, it was announced that facility would close its doors. As a result, a community that’s already suffering from a long list of economic and social problems takes another blow.

It didn’t have to be this way, but governmental decisions played a big role in LAC’s fate.

LAC opened around 1990, built by United States Correctional Corporation on land that was originally slated to be an industrial park, and housed prisoners from Kentucky. USCC was purchased by CCA around 1998, and CCA operated the prison since then. There were two other private prisons in Kentucky, both since closed, opened by USCC and bought by CCA. About the same time that LAC opened, the state opened the Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex in West Liberty. Still, there were enough Kentucky convicts to accommodate the state’s penal institutions and the private prisons.

(In the interest of transparency, I need to make a couple of disclosures. Relatives on my mother’s side of the family owned an interest in some of the property originally purchased for the industrial park in the early 1980s, and some of the proceeds from that sale made their way to me when my maternal grandmother died in 1987 and a cousin died in 2000. In addition, I originally opposed the siting of a prison on the property because the facility originally was a medium security lockup with no perimeter fence. I was worried that an escapee might make his way to my paternal grandmother’s home, just a couple of miles away, and break in and harm her. Although there were a few walkaways before a fence was built, thankfully none ever posed a threat to my grandmother.)

A couple of things happened after Kentucky began using the private prisons. In the early 2000s, the state built Little Sandy Correctional Complex near Sandy Hook in Elliott County, only about 25 miles north of EKCC in West Liberty. Construction costs are not readily available, but for comparison purposes, it cost more than $72 million to build EKCC about 15 years earlier. The state opened Little Sandy in 2005 despite the presence of two private prisons within the Commonwealth’s borders.

Elliott County is the home of powerful Democrat Rocky Adkins, who currently serves as the majority floor leader in the Kentucky House of Representatives. (Again, in the interests of transparency, I went to college with Adkins and considered him an acquaintance). Is it a coincidence that the state built a new prison in his home county, despite private prison beds being available? It’s doubtful, especially given this state’s political history and which party dominates state government. The new prison added more than 200 people to the state’s payroll – further straining the troubled state pension system, it should be noted – while housing more than 1,000 prisoners, some of whom could have been lodged at LAC.

The second thing that happened was that number of new county or regional jails and detention centers were built after LAC opened. Many of these were built with more capacity than necessary so the local governments could make money housing state prisoners. This, too, siphoned away prisoners who could have been held at LAC.

This glut of prison beds didn’t portend good things for LAC and CCA’s other two prisons. The Otter Creek facility in Floyd County, which had housed female prisoners, had been a source of problems for years, so the state pulled its female convicts from that facility and moved them elsewhere. And in 2010, the state cancelled its contract with CCA and removed all Kentucky prisoners from LAC and the Marion Adjustment Center, near Lebanon in central Kentucky.

LAC responded by taking prisoners from other states, most notably Vermont. There were efforts to bring in prisoners from elsewhere, most notably West Virginia, but that plan died when it was discovered that the constitution of our neighbor to the east forbids shipping prisoners out of state to serve their sentences. CCA also attempted to win a contract to house federal prisoners a couple of years ago, but that effort fell through.

So when CCA got underbid by another private prison earlier this year for the Vermont contract, the facility announced its closure. Some have been quick to blame local officials for not doing more to save the jobs, but in reality there was little they could do. This was a business decision between the state government of Vermont and a private company headquartered in Tennessee. If any blame can be assigned for LAC’s closure, much of it should go to the Commonwealth of Kentucky for building new state-owned prisons when adequate private facilities already existed.

So, what now for LAC? Its former employees will be searching for jobs in an already depressed market. Many will go on unemployment and quite possibly will have to sign up for other government benefits.

There’s one possible solution, if only government will get out of the way. A new federal prison has been proposed for Letcher County, but it’s running into some opposition, most notably environmental and permitting concerns. Instead of spending millions of dollars to build a new facility, and jumping through the hurdles required to install infrastructure, it makes sense for the federal government to buy LAC from CCA and use it for the new federal prison, right? After all, the facility is already there, it has the necessary utilities, there’s a trained workforce in place and the purchase price would probably be far less than the cost of building a new prison.

But once again, it looks as if logic and government are mutually exclusive. When I posed this possibility a few weeks ago, a representative from Congressman Hal Rogers’ office said she wasn’t sure if that was allowable under federal Bureau of Prisons policy.

If it’s not, it should be. Government decisions are what sealed LAC’s fate. It’s time for the government to get out of its own way and foster economic development in impoverished areas, not impede it. Kentucky’s decision to build a state prison in Elliott County as a bit of political payback essentially made it impossible for LAC to continue to operate. If there are bureaucratic obstacles to the federal government buying LAC, the feds need to eliminate them.

I wish the best for the LAC employees who now face the uncertainty of unemployment and a job search in a difficult region. And I wish the government would do as much to help those folks as it’s done to cause their plight.

Conway opens his gubernatorial campaign by barking up the wrong tree on gas prices

Even before he knew who his Republican gubernatorial opponent will be this fall – and indeed, even before his own all-but-certain nomination by the Democrats was official – Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway fired his first shot in his bid to win the Bluegrass State’s top spot.

Unfortunately for him, his shot was a dud, missing the mark entirely.

Conway has long railed against gasoline pricing in Kentucky, blaming high costs at the pump on what he asserts is a monopoly on the wholesale market in the state by Marathon Petroleum. His latest salvo was a lawsuit filed in federal court last month. During his remarks following the filing of the suit, Conway lashed out at the Federal Trade Commission for what he calls inaction on his complaints about Marathon and its business practices since buying the Ashland Oil refinery in Boyd County several years ago.

Given the fact that the FTC is part of the Obama administration, and knowing how Democrats hate “Big Oil” and are constantly criticizing oil companies for ripping off consumers, if Obama’s FTC isn’t acting on Conway’s complaints, there must not be anything to them.

But at any rate, Conway’s ire is misguided. Instead of complaining about Marathon’s alleged refinery monopoly costing consumers money, he should really be looking at the collusion on pricing by retailers within individual markets.

If you travel much, it doesn’t take long to notice a pattern. Gas prices are pretty much the same at every station in a small town or community, or at every retailer in a certain area of a larger city. Within the city limits of Beattyville, there are four gas stations owned by three separate companies. Yet the price is the same at each one. Ditto for Jackson. Drive down the town’s main drag, and the price is the same at each of the five stations you’ll pass. When the price goes up at one, it’s not long before it goes up at all the others.

A few weeks ago, I had to go to Whitesburg for work. You can’t go any farther southeast in Kentucky than the Letcher County seat. Keep going in that direction, and you’ll be in Virginia in a few miles. Whitesburg is 80 miles from the Mountain Parkway, so it’s not exactly the most accessible place in the Bluegrass State. Yet gas prices there were consistently below $2.50 a gallon, easily the cheapest in the region. Still, all the stations there were selling gas for the same price.

Gas buyers will go out of their way for a bargain. It’s not uncommon for them to drive across town to save a few cents a gallon, spending more than they end up saving. Yet there’s no logical explanation for all stations in a certain market keeping their prices the same. Why won’t one station set its price a nickel a gallon less than everyone else to undercut the competition? There has to be collusion going on between the stations to keep gas at the same price. That’s the only logical explanation.

If one station lowers its prices, it makes good business sense for competitors to lower theirs. But where’s the logic in raising your prices when everyone else does?

Conway’s statement that the state is monopolized by the Ashland refinery is false on its face. When the city of Somerset opened its own gas station in an attempt to lower prices in the area, it made a big deal of pointing out that the city’s station would be buying its fuel from the recently-reopened Somerset Oil refinery. So there are other options available, but Conway wants to pretend otherwise. It’s easier for him to gripe about the big bad oil companies rather than looking for true solutions.

If Conway is really serious about lowering gas prices, here’s what he needs to do. Instead of complaining in front of the media and filing lawsuits that won’t go anywhere, he needs to send his investigators out into the state. Pick a town, any town, where prices are all the same. Let his team start asking how the retailers set their prices, and why they always raise their prices when certain competitors do. There have been press quotes from some gas station employees saying they’ve been told to raise their prices whenever the station across the street does so. Wonder if they’ll say the same thing if an “unsworn falsification to authorities” charge hangs over their heads?

But for some reason, Conway doesn’t want to risk alienating the gas station owners. He’d rather point fingers at a huge conglomerate and blame them instead of going after the root of the problem. He gets headlines and makes it look like he cares about consumers, but the reality is something totally different. If Conway wants to protect consumers, he’ll take a serious look at collusion among retailers. He can either eliminate it if it exists, or force them to provide a logical and believable explanation as to why everyone in town sells gas for the same price, and the collusion that seems so evident is really just a mirage.

Journalistic malpractice committed in Kentucky Republican governor’s race

Even before I left the journalism profession, I’d become critical of the way the news is covered. From the stories that are chosen vs. those that are ignored, to the way certain stories are presented, I saw journalism, especially the kind practiced by daily newspapers, swirling around the drain a long time ago.

But now that I’m on the other side of things, and have had the misfortune to be misquoted or have a quote taken out of context as a source for a news story (thankfully, very rarely,) I see it even more clearly.

As someone who remains a staunch defender of the First Amendment and appreciates the role the press is supposed to play, this pains me. But day after day, I see journalistic malpractice being committed to the extent that it’s becoming obvious that most of the traditional mainstream media’s wounds are self-inflicted. 

Nowhere was this more evident than in the just-concluded Kentucky Republican gubernatorial primary. It’s hard to picture a bigger failure of journalists to do their jobs than in the way the governor’s race was covered.

A key factor in this year’s four-way primary, won by Louisville resident Matt Bevin by a razor-thin margin, was the role that blogger Michael Adams played in the race. Adams, you’ll recall, is the person who began making allegations that Jamie Comer assaulted a college girlfriend. His charges circulated around the Internet for months, but finally floated to the surface when the Lexington Herald-Leader reported that Adams had contacted the campaigns of two of Comer’s Republican rivals, Hal Heiner and Will T. Scott, to peddle his allegations. (Some nontraditional media outltes reported that Adams also made contact with the campaign of Attorney General Jack Conway, who was the presumptive Democratic gubernatorial nominee).

When Adams’ assertions hit the mainstream, the race blew wide open. Adams had been trying to convince Comer’s ex-girlfriend to give him information, but she refused. When the Herald-Leader story hit print, she felt compelled to contact The Courier-Journal to confirm the allegations. The rest is well-known. Comer blamed Heiner for spreading the story, accused his ex-girlfriend of making the story up for money, and the fallout is widely believed to have damaged both of them and allowed Bevin to emerge victorious by a scant 83 votes.

The big player in the race was clearly Adams, but why didn’t the media investigate him? Why did they never dig into his motivation for opposing Comer so ardently? How could they allow him to affect the race the way he did without questioning why? The closest anyone came was a story by CNHI’s political reporter Ronnie Ellis, but his story consisted mainly of Auditor Adam Edelen complaining about Adams’ prior involvement in a legislative race in Clark County. Giving Edelen, a Democrat, space to go on a partisan rant against how Adams was involved in opposition research against another Democrat a few years ago is hardly the same as shining some light on his motivation for getting involved in the governor’s race this year.

By not investigating Adams’ reasons for attacking Comer so viciously, but letting Adams’ revelations dominate the news as the campaign entered its final stretch, the media failed. And the press failed again by latching on to Adams’ more salacious allegations, yet not exploring his more substantive charges.

Comer ran primarily on his record the past four years as commissioner of agriculture. Adams made several claims that Comer has mismanaged the state’s pilot industrial hemp project, yet no one ever looked into those charges. One would think that from a policy standpoint, that would be more important than a “he said, she said” matter from two decades ago. But I can’t recall having seen any media outlet doing a story about the hemp issue. 

There were other media mistakes made as well. One of Comer’s top assistants in the Department of Agriculture left her official job and went to work for his campaign, then abruptly quit. Several prominent Comer supporters and donors, including family members of this former staffer, switched their support from Comer to Heiner. Some perfunctory reporting was done on their change of favored candidate, but no one looked into the bigger picture, including why a trusted aide left Comer’s side. Speculation ran rampant in cyberspace, but nothing was ever put on the record.

The domestic abuse allegations were low-hanging fruit. I’d been aware of them for months, long before they hit the mainstream, but didn’t consider them credible until the ex-girlfriend confirmed them. It would have taken a little more investigating to check out the charges of mismanagement of the hemp program, but that wasn’t as eye-catching or glamorous as allegations of physical abuse. And it would have required even more digging to get the scoop on the source of the charges himself.

We may never know what prompted Adams to turn into an anti-Comer zealot.  Had the press done its job, we would have found out. What if Adams decides to get involved in another race this fall? Will the press then try to learn what makes him tick, but only after he had an unscrutinized impact on the GOP gubernatorial primary?

When The C-J published the story in which Comer’s college girlfriend confirmed the abuse allegations, Comer’s attorney threatened a lawsuit. To date, none has been filed. A better case could be made against the entire Kentucky journalistic community for malpractice during the GOP primary. It’s too bad such an action isn’t possible.

Did Comer’s public relations blunder cost him the governor’s race and his political career?

Every January, a professional organization of which I’m a member hosts a meeting at which the biggest public relations blunders of the previous year are discussed. One of the sources of those blunder lists tends to include as many goofs by conservative political figures as possible. Most of the events referenced are from elsewhere other than Kentucky, but there’s a very good chance that will change when the lists for 2015 are compiled.

Had Agriculture Secretary and former Republican gubernatorial candidate Jamie Comer better handled the brouhaha over allegations that he was in an abusive relationship with a college girlfriend, he might be planning how to push his winning primary campaign forward into this fall’s general election. Instead, he’s licking his wounds after his narrow primary defeat three weeks ago and is most likely staring at the end of his political career.

The story is well-known by now. A Lexington resident named Michael Adams heard rumors of the incident and started a concerted anti-Comer movement, establishing a blog and a Facebook page to spread the story. Once the mainstream press picked up on the subject, months after the blogger began his efforts, the woman in question felt compelled to speak out. A number of reporters had been trying to contact her about the matter, but she chose to send a letter to The Courier-Journal’s Joe Gerth in which she confirmed she’d been in a physically and emotionally abusive relationship with Comer.

That led Comer to issue a blanket denial, which in turn led others to come forward to confirm the ex-girlfriend’s account. Comer also lashed out at election rival Hal Heiner, accusing his campaign of being behind the blogger’s actions and claiming Heiner had paid the ex-girlfriend to fabricate her story. Comer’s wife penned a column in his defense for the C-J which was riddled with factual inaccuracies. Comer’s supporters began mirroring his statements and accusations on social media and on comment sections of news stories about the matter. The ex-girlfriend even began getting messages from strangers, accusing her of selling her soul for politics.

Heiner had led in most polling prior to the election, but Comer had been considered the frontrunner since he was sworn in as agriculture commissioner four years ago. Political observers didn’t give Matt Bevin much of a chance of winning until the battle between Comer and Heiner got ugly. The acrimony between Comer and Heiner allowed Bevin, previously known for his failed attempt to “primary” Mitch McConnell last year, to claim an 83-vote victory over Comer. The outcome didn’t change after a recanvass, Comer opted not to proceed with a formal recount, and Bevin became the nominee.

If Comer hadn’t acted so angrily, it’s entirely possible that he could have persuaded a few dozen more people to vote for him, and he could have won the gubernatorial primary.

What if Comer had stated that he had sometimes acted in an immature and ungentlemanly fashion in his youth? (Didn’t we all, at one time or another?) What if he had said that he regretted the way he may have treated her at times? What if he had apologized to her for any pain he may have caused her, and said he was sorry that she had been pulled into the middle of the election by a blogger operating on his own agenda? What if he had directed more of his ire toward blogger Adams, who started the whole thing, and less of it toward Heiner or Gerth? It’s quite likely that enough of the electorate would have accepted his statement to give him the victory, even if he didn’t directly answer questions about whether or not he’d been physically abusive to her.

Comer’s position toward his ex-girlfriend changed during the process, which didn’t endear him to a lot of people. He originally said he thought she was a good person and wouldn’t have been involved in Adams’ campaign against him. But when she finally spoke out under duress, he claimed that she had been paid to make up the stories. His lawyer also was hostile to her in comments he made to the media. The lawyer also threatened to sue the C-J over the story, but no libel suit has yet been filed as of this writing.

The public values sincerity and honors honesty. We’re a forgiving bunch. A little admission and contrition from Comer would have gone a long way. Instead, he remained defiant, choosing instead to blame others for the situation instead of taking some responsibility for his own role in it. And that, more than anything he may have done two decades ago as a college student, is what led to his downfall.

“It’s not the crime, it’s the coverup.” How many times have we heard that statement since Watergate? Something similar applies here. “It’s not what you did, it’s how you respond to it.” Comer responded improperly, and paid a price for it. His blunder should be a cautionary tale for politicians on how not to handle such a situation.

SNAP, crackle and pop: Food stamp fraud means taxpayers subsidize drug abuse

The Jackson Walmart opened in 1985. At the time, my job required me to spend two or three days a week in the Breathitt County seat, so I was a frequent shopper at the new store. I typically went in to browse the newly-released records (yes, vinyl was still the way most people purchased music back then) and check out the fishing tackle.

After taking another job a couple of years later, I didn’t have many opportunities to shop there. That changed 11 years ago, when I returned to Jackson for work and began making regular trips to the store for household supplies, toiletries, pet food and other of life’s necessities.

It wasn’t long before I began noticing some peculiar purchasing habits. People would load up their shopping carts with cases and 12-packs of soft drinks. They were buying more pop than even the thirstiest family could consume in a month, so I thought maybe they were stocking up the concession stand for a youth sports league, community organization fundraising effort or public event.

Then, I observed a few other interesting things about this phenomenon. It always seemed to occur shortly after the first of the month, and the purchasers were buying all this pop with their SNAP cards, commonly known as food stamps. (I’m old enough to remember when they were officially called food coupons). Also, I started noticing that most of the purchasers had the tell-tale signs of being drug users, particularly of prescription painkillers.

Eventually, I learned what was going on. These people were using their government SNAP benefits to buy large amounts of pop, and then reselling it for cash which they use to buy drugs.

These fraudsters originally sold their ill-gotten soda to small “mom-and-pop” stores, because the proprietors of those businesses could buy it from the SNAPpers cheaper than they could the beverage distributors. Lately, though, they’ve bypassed the middleman and have started selling directly to consumers.  I witnessed just such a transaction in the Jackson Walmart parking lot a couple of years ago. Two women were loading up the trunk of their car with 12-packs of pop when a man approached them. Money changed hands, and the man walked away with two 12-packs.

This practice causes feelings to run high in the areas where it’s rampant. A Lexington television station has dubbed this “the pop train” and did an investigative story last year. Reactions were varied. Some complained that people should do whatever they want with their SNAP benefits, and others have no right to complain. Many are outraged that their tax dollars are going to support illegal drug abuse.

What can be done? It will literally take an Act of Congress to make any changes to the SNAP program. It’s a federally funded program, administered by the states for the federal Department of Agriculture. States cannot exclude certain items from being purchased. Minnesota tried years ago but that effort was shot down by the feds.

Should the feds try to remove pop from the list of eligible items, we can expect a cry of outrage from the left. “Poor people don’t get to enjoy many things in life. How dare we further oppress them by not letting them buy soft drinks?”

Some claim that people are doing this not to fund their drug habits, but to raise funds for other household expenses. It’s plausible, but not very likely, as there are assistance programs for everything from landline and wireless telephone service to electricity. Besides, when the perpetrators have the unmistakable signs of drug abusers, that explanation becomes less likely.

The best solution is to institute some kind of quota system. Since the SNAP cards are part of an EBT system, it should be easy to track the amount of pop that’s bought with one card and to disallow purchases beyond a reasonable amount for personal household consumption. Once upon a time, at the first of each month, the Jackson Walmart used to post a store limit on the amount of pop that could be purchased, but they’ve abandoned that practice.

The resale of items bought with food stamps is considered to be fraud, and at least one law enforcement agency is doing something about it. The Hazard Police Department is using a grant to fund an investigation. They’ve secured several indictments and it will be interesting to watch those cases go through the court system. Meanwhile, according to a Courier-Journal story last week, the federal government has notified the state that rampant food stamp fraud in Kentucky threatens the state’s funding to administer the program.

I’ve always been infuriated at this fraudulent practice. My budget is already stretched thin, and given the amount of my paycheck that the government gets in taxes, I want those dollars to be spent as prudently and wisely as possible. Plus, I’ve always been an outspoken opponent of drug abuse. So I’m doubly outraged to see my tax dollars stolen and then used to buy drugs. I hope something can be done to stop this wasteful, abusive and criminal practice.

GOP presidential caucus: Is what’s good for Rand Paul also good for the party?

With the exception of my college years, when I voted by absentee ballot, my Election Day routine has been the same: Go to a location not too far from home, slip into a secluded corner and cast a secret ballot for the candidate of my choice.

But thanks to U.S. Sen. Rand Paul’s desire for a political safety net, that routine may be changing next year, and not necessarily for the better.

Paul, Kentucky’s first-term junior senator who was elected in 2010, recently announced his worst-kept-secret-in-America intent to run for president next year. He also wants to run for re-election to his Senate seat.

If he lived in a different state, that might not be a problem. In Wisconsin, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan was re-elected to the House of Representatives even as he was losing his vice presidential race as Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012. In Connecticut, retired U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman was re-elected despite also being on the ballot as Al Gore’s running mate in 2000. And in Delaware, Joe Biden was lucky enough to win both the vice presidency and re-election as a senator in 2008. Guess which position he resigned?

Kentucky isn’t one of those states, though, and state law prohibits a candidate from running for more than one office on the same ballot. That poses a problem for Paul, who wants to pursue his presidential ambitions while at the same time being able to fall back on his Senate seat should he lose that race.

Our senior senator, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, also has an interest in how this all unfolds. Although Paul’s seat is generally considered safe for Republicans, the GOP faces a challenge in keeping its newfound majority in 2016. The Senate seats up for grabs are in states said to be favorable to Democrats. The loss of a red state senator would be devastating, especially in McConnell’s home state.

Paul has explored multiple avenues for dealing with the situation. Originally, he sought to have Kentucky’s law changed to allow a run for president and a lower office simultaneously. A bill filed in the General Assembly last year by a supporter went nowhere in the Democratic-controlled House, and no attempt was made this year to push similar legislation. He also mentioned the possibility of filing a lawsuit to overturn the law, but that didn’t happen either.

The solution that has emerged, however, would on its face offer a solution to Paul’s quandary. Plans are in the works now for Kentucky Republicans to choose their presidential preference in a one-time-only caucus sometime in late winter or early spring, and then have primary candidates for other races on the ballot in the traditional May election. That would initially allow Paul to be a candidate for both offices without running afoul of the Kentucky Revised Statutes.

There are a lot of questions about how caucuses would operate, and who would participate.

Would they be held on a precinct or other local level, allowing voters to continue to cast their ballots close to home? Or would they take place by district or region, requiring participants to travel a significant distance to participate?

Voter turnout is abysmally low in most cases as it is. The Kentucky GOP gubernatorial race was one of the most exciting in memory, yet Tuesday’s turnout was microscopic. If voters are forced to drive an hour or more to attend a caucus, who other than die-hard supporters of certain candidates will take part? I know I’d hate to give up the better part of a day to have to drive to London, Hazard, Somerset, Pikeville or other location in my congressional district to participate.

And how will the process take place? Will votes be cast by secret ballot? Or will attendees be forced to make a public vote and risk retribution if they don’t support the right candidate? Since this process is being developed for Paul’s benefit, those of us who aren’t inclined to support Paul may be reluctant to publicly vote for Ted Cruz or any of a number of other candidates (announced or unannounced) who are better choices. There may also be the perception that the fix is in for Paul, also depressing participation.

What happens if Paul happens to win the GOP presidential nomination and also wins his senatorial primary? He still faces the you-can’t-run-for-two-offices-at-the-same-time problem, and there’s no guarantee that a lawsuit filed after the presidential nominee is chosen would be resolved by the time the November ballots are set. It’s unknown if Paul could drop out of the Senate race in favor of a Republican replacement. And with the national Electoral College map as hostile to Republicans as it is, there’s no way the GOP could forfeit Kentucky’s eight votes by taking Paul off the Bluegrass ballot.

That’s probably all a moot point anyway. Paul won’t be the Republican presidential nominee. The establishment usually gets its way, and it’s hostile to him. Paul also may face a backlash from voters who aren’t happy with his have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too approach. Some are already pointing to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who faces a similar situation but has decided to run only for president and forego any re-election bid.

Still, the caucus idea raises a lot of questions. Will it be good for Rand Paul? Definitely. Will it be good for Kentucky Republicans? That remains to be seen.

(H.B. Elkins is a former award-winning Kentucky community newspaper editor who now works in public relations. All opinions expressed are his own and do not represent the views of his current or any former employer. Reach him at hbelkins@gmail.com. Read more at kentuckyvalleyviews.blogspot.com.)

Jumping to conclusions: The most ineffective form of exercise

When a disaster happens, you can safely predict that those of a certain political belief will immediately start jumping to conclusions about what caused the incident and begin to blame those of the opposite ideology for not throwing enough money at the problem to have prevented it in the first place.

We saw our latest example of it last week, when an Amtrak train derailed near Philadelphia with deadly consequences. Before the last of those killed was recovered from the wreckage, Democrats were speaking in the halls of Congress, saying that cuts in infrastructure funding had caused the disaster and Republicans were responsible.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia’s mayor was cautioning the public not to rush to judgment about the cause of the crash when news began to surface that the train was traveling at speeds well in excess on of the speed limit at the sharp curve where the accident took place.

Guess what? The initial reports from investigating agencies reveal that the train was going 106 miles per hour, twice the recommended and engineered speed for the curve, when the derailment occurred. There’s also no evidence as of this writing that mechanical error caused it. That leaves only human error as the cause.  The engineer was familiar with the section of track where it happened, and there were signs in place to warn that the curve was ahead. A lack of infrastructure funding certainly can’t be blamed as the cause of this accident, especially since Republicans are generally amenable to infrastructure improvements if they serve the public good, are of a constitutional nature and don’t reek of political paybacks or pork-barrel spending.

Blaming this train wreck on infrastructure spending is like blaming a fatal car wreck on the road when the driver negotiates it at an excessive speed despite signs being posted.

This tactic isn’t new. Much of the recent noise from the braying left stems from the aftermath of the failure of a bridge carrying I-35W over the Mississippi Rive in Minneapolis, Minn. in 2007. That bridge collapsed under the weight of rush hour traffic and construction equipment. Although it had a sufficiency rating of 50 on a scale of 1 to 100, the major factor in its collapse, according to investigators, was a design flaw.

That event called attention to the condition of bridges across the state and country, and it also introduced scores of people to the terms “structurally deficient” and “functionally obsolete.” It also forced lots of reporters to try to explain to their audiences just what those terms mean, and to translate them from engineer-speak into plain English.

So it’s no surprise that when a bridge across the Skagit River on I-5 in Washington collapsed, the jumping to conclusions began again. Before investigators arrived on the scene, liberals started blaming a lack of infrastructure funding. And again, they were wrong. The query revealed that an overheight truck struck some of the overhead support beams on the truss bridge, causing it to fall into the river. Again, it was another futile exercise in worthless mental gymnastics.

Kentucky took note of this when an overwidth truck struck a support beam on the bridge connecting US 52 in Ohio to downtown Ashland. The bridge was closed immediately while repairs were made, and officials were grateful that the span didn’t collapse like the one on the west coast did.

There have been a couple of similar events in this area that also could have brought out the braying left, and in the latter case, it did. A year prior to the Washington state bridge collapse, a span of the Eggner Ferry Bridge carrying US 68 and KY 80 across Kentucky Lake in western Kentucky collapsed. The usual suspects didn’t have time to start their familiar chorus of cacophony, though, because this happened after dark and it soon became known that an ocean-going ship had used the wrong navigational channel and had struck the span.

And earlier this year, just across the Ohio River, a bridge at the Hopple Street exit over I-75 in Cincinnati collapsed. The bridge was being demolished because a replacement had been built, and the cause was determined to be a construction accident. Before the cause had been revealed, the left was already sounding its clarion call that a lack of funding was to blame. Sorry, wrong again, as usual.

It’s true that many of the nation’s public works are in need of repair or replacement. From road and bridges to water and sewer lines to schools, there are problems. But there’s also a lack of funds to fix them. The left continues to insist that money be spent on social programs, there’s a dearth of tax revenue available, and the public at large feels like they’re taxed to the max and can’t afford to pay any more. When conservatives try to cut social programs to pay for these projects, they’re cast as unfeeling. When they decline to raise taxes and take more from their constituents’ paychecks, which is also commendable, they’re painted with the same broad and unfair brush. Families have to make tough choices when their expenses exceed their incomes, but the government seemingly never has to. And the well of higher taxes has run dry.

It would be refreshing if, for once, the left would wait before the facts are known before they jump to conclusions. But the same constituency that cares so much about the public’s health that it wants to ban salt shakers at restaurants and Big Gulps in convenience stores seemingly can’t wait to get some exercise, ineffective as it is.

(H.B. Elkins is a former award-winning Kentucky community newspaper editor who now works in public relations. All opinions expressed are his own do not represent the views of his current or any former employer. Reach him at hbelkins@gmail.com. Read more at kentuckyvalleyviews.blogspot.com.)