By Larry Dale Keeling HERALD-LEADER COLUMNIST Aug. 17, 2007
For the better part of three months, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Steve Beshear has stayed largely under the public radar.
Sure, he’s attended the few forums that have been held, as well as the Fancy Farm Picnic and related events that weekend. Lately, he also has issued a couple of position papers.
Other than that, though, Beshear has stayed out of sight and has made little news since the May primary, presumably concentrating instead on building an organization and a bankroll for the fall campaign.
Gov. Ernie Fletcher, on the other hand, has been a near constant blip on the radar screen, mainly with his “the sky is falling” insistence on calling a special legislative session to pass an energy bill that one day may allow Mr. Peabody’s coal train to haul the state treasury away.
Oops! I forgot the current “spin” that this trumped-up session isn’t about one company or even just coal, but rather is an opportunity to pass a comprehensive energy measure that, according to House Speaker Jody Richards, is also an “environmental protection bill.”
There is some validity to the “comprehensive” claim, since the bill does have numerous features other than incentives for coal-to-liquid and coal-to-gas plants.
But given the current state of those particular technologies, any measure that offers incentives for such plants can’t live up to the “environmental protection” claim.
And despite the spin, Mr. Peabody’s train remains the force driving the coming special session because the only reason to deal with this legislation now, instead of next year, is to influence Peabody Energy’s decision on where it may build a $3 billion coal-to-gas facility.
(Cynic that I am, I believe the may in that last sentence can’t be overemphasized. Even if Peabody announces that Kentucky will be the site if and when it ever builds such a facility, I don’t expect to see the first shovel of dirt turned anytime soon unless there is a sea change in national energy policy.)
Without the expectation that Peabody will make a decision soon, House Democrats would not have agreed to a special session in the middle of a Republican governor’s re-election campaign, a session he hopes will make Kentucky voters forget his record of failed leadership.
Unfortunately for Fletcher, it’s not working out that way, as the poll Preston-Osborne conducted recently for The Lane Report indicated. A plurality of respondents in that poll agreed that the special session Fletcher called last month, with 66 items on the agenda, was “a political ploy.”
Like other recent polls, the Preston-Osborne sampling showed Beshear with a lead, 49 percent to 31 percent in this instance.
And much like the results of a recent SurveyUSA poll, some of the Preston-Osborne findings suggest that Fletcher’s opposition to letting Kentuckians vote on expanded gambling could be as damaging to him as it is helpful.
But the thing that has struck me about all the recent polls is the lack of significant movement in Fletcher’s figures.
Even with that radar screen virtually to himself for three months and even with bringing every power of the governor’s office into play on behalf of his campaign, he hasn’t budged his numbers noticeably.
The latest SurveyUSA poll pitting him against Beshear put his support at 37 percent to Beshear’s 58 percent. A Hasting Wyman’s Southern Political Report poll that found just 41 percent support for Beshear had Fletcher at 38 percent. And there’s that dismal 31 percent in the Preston-Osborne poll.
Fletcher got at least a psychological lift last week when a SurveyUSA poll that didn’t pit the candidates against each other put the incumbent governor’s job approval rating at 40 percent, the first time he has cracked that barrier in more than two-and-a-half years. But that was up just two points from May.
On the down side, his disapproval rating remained at 57 percent.
Such stagnant numbers hovering in or barely out of the 30s suggest to me that Kentuckians have formed their opinion of Fletcher and that there may be precious little he can do to change their minds.
He has a base that seems to be oblivious to his failures and shortcomings, but it’s a relatively small base. And with less than three months to go, it’s showing no real potential for growth.