Tuesday, 1 August 2006
Media Bias, Republican Ineptitude, and Democratic Impotency
While perusing the Conservative Edge, I came across this interesting tid bit of information.
According to Governor Fletcher's chief of staff, Stan Cave, when Democrat Kent Downey was caught running a prostitution ring from his state offices, the state's two largest newspapers (the big two) ran 120 articles in 71 months about the situation. During the Patton campaign finance investigation in 1995 there were 178 articles in 74 months. After Patton admitted to having a sexual affair with a Democratic county patronage chief, who was doing business with the state of Kentucky, there were 193 pieces in 27 months.
Now that Governor Fletcher has been accused of getting a dozen or so Republicans merit jobs in the state system, the Herald-Leader and Courier-Journal have run 757 articles in 14 months.
That is an amazing number. So let me get this straight. The scandal involving a hand full of merit jobs has gotten over 4 times the coverage in 1/4th the time of the Patton campaign finance investigation. This was the investigation in which Patton's cronies were found guilty of campaign finance violations (voter fraud) in an election that was closer than 30,000 votes? Patton could quite possibly have illegally stolen an election and his offenses got 1/4th the coverage of a minor hiring scandal? The scale of disproportion in this case is beyond ludicrous.
It is obvious the Courier and Herald Leader are trying to oust Fletcher as Governor and what are the Republicans doing? They are trying to help them! First Brock waved his thumb at Fletcher after receiving a pardon for his acts in the scandal. Then, Pence resigned from the re-election ticket. Next. David Williams questioned Fletcher's electability. Of course the worst offender was Jack Richardson. The leader of the Jefferson County Republican party called a press conference in which he stated that Fletcher should not seek re-election. Thanks for providing the Democratic candidate with plenty of fodder if Fletcher wins the nomination. Personally, I think Richardson should have stepped down after embarrassing himself in the media. Especially since his job is to help elect "Republican" candidates and in fact may have done great damage to the likely Republican candidate.
The sad part of this story is that all of these guys were right beside Fletcher during the good times. But now that a hack attorney general and the main stream media have put out a hit on the Governor, all of these guys are running for the hills. Way to go! Yeah, I want you guys next to me in a fox hole.
But even with these problems, the Republicans still hold a 3-1 lead in fund raising over the Democrats. That just shows you how far the national Democratic party's embrace of the fringe left has placed them out of step with the average Kentuckian. Which is why the Democrats can't even take advantage of the Republican's ineptitude and fractured infighting.
