Monday, 14 December 2009

Nothing To Offer Except Fear Itself

The Democrats in Kentucky suffered a serious setback last Tuesday. Higdon's easy win created shock waves that will be felt well into next year. Gerth has a good article today on the fallout of the election. He re-iterated points I made on the election. The Republicans nationalization of the election tapped into the anger over the national Democratic parties leftward tilt to help fuel the win. In addition Gerth noted that Higdon had a good GOTV campaign. His district had the highest voter turn out in the election.

Gerth also points the obvious problems the Democrats face next year. First an electorate that is pissed off at the Democrats in DC. Creating an environment for the GOP to sweep next year's election. Secondly, Beshear's push to get an unconstitutional slots bill is done. The most he can hope for is a constitutional amendment which won't take effect during his tenure in office which will do him little good. But Gerth doesn't give up hope. He sees a way Beshear can get gambling next year. Anyone care to guess what that strategy will be?

But the governor and the horse industry still have hopes that expanded gambling can win approval without a constitutional amendment, which would give Beshear hundreds of millions of dollars to spend just before his re-election campaign.
All they have to do is show the state Senate how bad the state’s budget is and how education and state police will need to be cut without it.

If you guessed fear then you guess correctly. They are going to try and scare the electorate with cuts in "education" and the "state police". They won't tell people that the cuts won't reduce the number of teachers or cops. It might reduce the numbers of bureaucrats, but won't do anything to the number of police on the streets or teachers in the classroom. The Democrats truly hate to see the loss of government bureaucracy. So instead of offering plans to intelligently trim state government, we are going to get a good dose of fear mongering. That is all they have to offer.