Thursday, 15 July 2010

It's On In The 3rd District

We are about a month away from the kickoff to the fall campaigns and the 2nd quarter financial reports for each campaign have been released. One of the big question marks for me was could Lally compete in the 3rd district against Yarmuth!. Could he raise the money to be competitive? I think the answer is yes. Lally was able to raise over $250,000 in the last quarter. That was a nice haul for him. Heck it was more than Yarmuth! raised in the same period.

While Lally still trails Yarmuth! with cash on hand $600,000 to $270,000, he has the money to buy air time and get out his message. Hopefully, Lally will be able to further close that financial gap even further in the coming months. Regardless in a Republican year, Lally should have enough money to make this a tight race in November. I am anxious to see polling on this battle. Some internal polls have shown it to be a close race. We can only hope.

Note: The Stupid Company of the Day award goes to UPS. What better way to show gratitude to your employee than to give some of the profits he has helped the company earn and give it to his political opponent. I can't fathom a better way to boost the morale within your organization. Unbelievable. I am not saying that UPS should have given money to Lally. Heck I don't think any employer should be forced to give money to an employee who runs for office. But I do think UPS should have stayed out of the race all together as a sign of respect to someone who is part of their company's success. Stupid.

Posted by brians at 9:50 PM in Louisville Politics
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Saturday, 15 May 2010

King Still Trails Badly

The good news continues in the Louisville Mayor's race. The latest polling shows Fisher leading 2-1 over King.

42%Fischer
21%King
13%Tandy
7%Allen

It is disappointing to see King move up to second place, but I guess all that money has to buy him something. Apparently it will buy him a distance second to Fischer. Fischer meanwhile holds a commanding and probably insurmountable lead heading into the final days of the primary. I guess that means King is first of the losers.

Posted by brians at 4:52 PM in Louisville Politics
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Monday, 10 May 2010

Jim King: Walking The Line

Jim King likes to walk the line. First he walked the legal line by illegally financing his daughter's campaign. Next he walked the ethical line misappropriating the St. Xavier logo. Now he is walking the credibility line.

But in his ad last week attacking fellow Democrat Greg Fischer, mayoral candidate Jim King went beyond what is generally considered acceptable campaign spin by accusing Fischer of fabricating an award that he won some 20 years ago.

Fischer didn’t.

Jim King is a real winner. He pushes every boundary of decency just so he can get his way. I can't wait to watch his losers speech next Tuesday when he finishes far back in the field.

Posted by brians at 6:28 PM in Louisville Politics
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Thursday, 6 May 2010

King On The Offensive In Mayoral Campaign

Jim King unleashed the following attack ad on Fischer a few days ago.


I love it. No not the ad. The fact that King is trailing in the polls and desperately needs some way to close the polls. He can't do it on his own merits, so he is turning to an option that probably appeals to him. Attacking his opponents.



Posted by brians at 8:23 PM in Louisville Politics
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Thursday, 29 April 2010

Battle For Democratic Nomination Starts Next Week

Once the pagentry of Derby comes to a close this weekend, focus will turn to the primary season in Kentucky. One race that will surely have fireworks is the Democratic primary for mayor of Louisville.

Political observors of the mayor's race believe that it is not a matter of if but when King unleashes attack ads against Fischer.  King trails Fischer by too large a deficit to make up by improving King's popularity alone.  Instead, expect "contrast" ads to weaken Fischer's image. 

Meanwhile, the Fischer campaign is no doubt ready to respond with a volley of their own.  He acknowledged the obvious recently when I asked him about what opposition research his campaign had on King.  Fischer has repeatedly brought up the word "character" in not so thinly veiled suggestions that one of his opponents lacks it

King has too much money and too big of an ego to go quietly into the night. I assume he will open up both barrels on Fisher. Apparently Fischer is not going to let any broad sides go unanswered. It looks an ugly battle could be brewing. Exit question: Is there any chance a candidate outside the fray could get enough disenfranchised voters to pull off the upset?

Posted by brians at 9:16 PM in Louisville Politics
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Wednesday, 21 April 2010

Louisville Mayor's Race

Last week the Courier Journal released the latest polling numbers from the mayoral race. The Republican side is a bit of a surprise with Hal Heiner opening up a 17 point lead on Thieneman. On the surface I figured both men have good name recognition. Heiner from being on the metro council and Thieneman from leading the revolt against the library tax. But then again, Thieneman did have that whole weird snit during his brief congressional run two years ago. I imagine his leaving the Republican party and endorsing Yarmuth! left a  bad taste in the mouth of many Republicans. At this point, I expect Heiner to win easily.

The Democratic side has been a welcome relief. I am in the anyone but Jim King bandwagon so I was greatly pleased to find him trailing not only Fischer but Tandy in the latest polls.

Candidate%
Fischer31
Tandy16
King13

My fear in the race was that King would lock up the union support and a big chunk of the African American support and eek out Fischer on election day. Instead, Fischer has locked up the educated liberal vote (I suspect much of it comes from blow back from King's successful attempts to buy his daughter a judgeship and his misuse of the St. X brand) and Tandy has locked up the black vote (not surprising since he is black) and King hasn't been able to gain a strong enough foot hold in the working class union Democrats to make up the difference which is why he is in third place.

I know there is still four weeks until election day and the advertising money is just now starting to flow. But it is good to see that King trailing far behind in the polls.

Posted by brians at 9:10 PM in Louisville Politics
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Thursday, 1 April 2010

Democrats And Crime

I always love reading about Democrat's plans for "fighting crime". Here I thought it was as simple as finding the bad guys and putting them in jail for as long as possible. Evidently, I am ignorant in the ways of fighting crime as Tandy's plan illuminates. Here are apparently the things we need to do to stop crime.

*  Working with landlords to improve the safety of rental housing.

* Trying to “take back” major streets and business districts that are blighted and in disorder.

* Controlling graffiti, litter and illegal dumping.

* Repairing broken street lights, filling potholes, towing abandoned vehicles, and providing other services as soon as possible.

Fighting crime extends to improving safety of rental homes, fixing blighted areas, controlling graffiti and litter. Of course my favorite, fighting crime is about filling potholes! Are you kidding me? This sounds more like a transfer of money from those that have to those that don't.  We are going to take money from those who keep their homes clean and safe and give it to people who are apparently incapable to keeping their place clean. All in the name of fighting crime!

This is ludicrous. You know what most people do if they find litter in their yard? They pick it up! It can be a lot of work, but most people have enough pride of ownership to do it. I know it might come as a shock. But it is true. Why should law abiding citizens pay money to take care of people who refuse to take care of themselves? The people in these "blighted" neighborhoods should clean up their own trash. The city government has no business playing nanny to these people. But he Democrats love to play nanny! Which is why we get silly proposals like the one put forth by Tandy.

Posted by brians at 3:53 PM in Louisville Politics
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Tuesday, 16 March 2010

Yarmuth! Should Be In Trouble

For the life of me, I have no idea why some currently elected Republican didn't challenge Yarmuth! in the 3rd congressional district. Why? Because Yarmuth! is incredibly vulnerable as one of the most liberal members of Congress. In a year of backlash against statism, there is no way that Yarmuth! should get re-elected. Recent poll numbers back that statement.

In 3rd Congressional District, a poll of 1979 Registered Voters showed:

For Yarmuth          27%
Against Yarmuth  23%
Depends on Ballot  48%
Margin of Sampling Error +/- 2.2%

Are you kidding me? A sitting two term congressman records only 27% who would definitely vote for him in a re-election. A strong Republican challenger would have destroyed Yarmuth! this year. The question is will any of the four candidates vying for the spot be able to mount a serious campaign? Considering none of the challengers have raised more than $25,000 I would have to say the chances are fairly bleak.

The Louisville GOP is a complete embarrassment. How is it possible that they could not find a serious candidate in such an obvious Republican year? Hell the Republicans in Lexington found serious candidates to challenge Chandler. And Chandler is a much stronger candidate than Yarmuth!. Pathetic.

Posted by brians at 8:17 PM in Louisville Politics
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Monday, 15 March 2010

Toss Up Time

The race for mayor in Louisville has a crowded Democratic field and a surprisingly competitive Republican field. Over the weekend, poll numbers came out for the mayor's race.



Let's break down the field starting with the Republicans.

Thieneman holds a slight lead over Heiner 34-30 with Robertson way behind at 6%. That leaves over 30% undecided which is a huge wild card in the race. Personally, I am a bit surprised that Thieneman doesn't have a larger lead since his name was heavily associated with the movement against the library tax. He was also in the paper a lot over his botched Congressional race two years ago. Or maybe Republicans remember his disgraceful exit from that race and it is holding him back. Only time will tell.

Regardless, both candidates are going to have their work cut out for them in the coming weeks. I imagine their message will get drowned out by the crowded Democratic field and race for U.S. Senate. They are going to have to try to cut through all of the noise and lift their name id if they hope to win.

While the Republican side has two candidates fighting for the spot, the Democratic side is a complete mess. Fischer leads the way with 20% followed by Tandy with 17%, King 12%, Allen at 8% and four other candidates sitting around 2%. 32% of the electorate is still undecided.

It doesn't surprise me at all that Fischer leads the way. He is coming off a run for the U.S. Senate two years ago and should lead in name recognition. I think it is a bit of a surprise that Tandy is in second and King in third. I figure King would have much greater name recognition. Especially after the debacle of buying his daughter a judgeship and his tenure as president of the Metro Council. Or maybe the fiasco with his daughter may be hurting him. We can only hope.

At this point the polls tell us one thing about the race. It is going to be a wild finish. No one has a solid lead and all the top candidates are close to each other. There is no telling who is going to win the race.
 
With both races being this close and with so many undecideds, the race is going to come down to two things. First and foremost it will be about name recognition. This will be an uphill battle with so many candidates and a highly competitive battle for U.S. Senate. Each campaign is going to have to scramble to eek out as much media (both free and paid) time as possible.

The other determining factor will be campaign organization. The team that can identify supporters and get them to the polls in the greater number will have an excellent chance of making up ground on more popular candidates in this wide open field. I don't expect any of these candidates to win by a large margin.

Notice I didn't say anything about the issues. Issues will have nothing to do with the primary winner. It will all be about name id and get out the vote efforts. There are just too many people in the races for the issues to play much of a role.

Posted by brians at 7:20 PM in Louisville Politics
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Tuesday, 2 March 2010

Why We Shouldn't Elect Judges

Everyone knows that Katie King is a below average judge. Hell she wasn't even remotely qualified to be a sitting judge when her daddy bought her the seat. Thus it doesn't come as a shock that she gets a poor rating among lawyers of the Louisville Bar Association. What is shocking is that three other judges got worse ratings than her.

The 20 judges, who were evaluated by lawyers, had an average score of 83 percent in generally doing well in their positions. But four scored below the mid-70s, putting them in the below-average range, said Jim Lunger of the Thoroughbred Research Group, which conducted the survey for the bar association.

Those judges were Katie King, at 69 percent; Annette Karem, 65 percent; William Ryan, 66 percent; and Paula Fitzgerald, 36 percent. Ryan and Fitzgerald both have senior status.

Wow. How piss poor of a judge do you have to be to score lower than Katie King? Apparently Paula Fitzgerald has no business being a judge yet she is considered a "senior" judge. This is the primary reason we shouldn't elect judges. The electorate has no reasonable means of knowing the legal qualifications or skills of each judicial candidate. Therefore you are bound to end up with a handful of pathetic judges like these.

We really need to have appointments for judgeships. Yeah we would probably end up with some cronyism, but in general the picks would be solid because the person appointing them won't want it to become a political issue in his or her next campaign.



Posted by brians at 9:06 PM in Louisville Politics
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