Jefferson County Republican Party: What Went Wrong?

Nationally, the Republican Party (well, actually the Tea Party Republicans) nearly destroyed the Democrats in the November elections. They previously eliminated most of the remaining moderates in the Grand Ole Party and more than a few Establishment backed candidates and incumbents. In Kentucky, the GOP did pretty well too, except in Louisville. Here, the local Republican Party got their usual butt kicking, which really shouldn’t have happened this time out.

The mood in Jefferson County was strongly in favor of change away from Obama and his political misadventures. People were just as tired of His Excellency, Mayor Jerry Abramson who served three terms as Louisville Mayor and two terms as Metro Mayor. The GOP had an outstanding candidate in the person of businessman and Metro Councilman, Hal Heiner. The GOP managed to field some good, but not spectacular candidates for Metro Council, but as usual, provided no help. The same goes for a lot of the other races such as for State Representative and State Senator.

The failure began about a year ago when interim party chairman, J T Miller, resigned in order to run for Metro Council District 19, which was being vacated by Hal Heiner to run for mayor (Miller, by the way is a classy guy, won). Party bylaws (antiquated though they be) states that opposite genders must occupy the alternating seats, that is, since there was a male party chairman and as the vice chairperson was female, only a male candidate could be nominated (the vice chairperson was not elected as part as a slate, but as a stand alone candidate). Through some backroom lobbying, Shelly May, who has little political experience, was nominated over a male candidate with significantly more experience and, thus, violated the party bylaws. The nomination had the weight of a defacto appointment since discussion before the membership wasn’t allowed. Shelly seems nice enough I guess, although she’s never actually spoken to me. She’s married to the former PVA John May who was appointed by then Governor Fletcher and lost his election bid to Tony Lindauer.

After her election, it was necessary to remove the female vice chairperson and key fundraiser (as I said violation of party bylaws appeared to be in play here, though apparently not a lot of common sense was)in favor of a male vice chairperson. The Operations Director, who could have challenged her over the bylaws, had his nominal salary first cut; then eliminated; and was finally removed from office. As it turned out, it was all a big mistake, especially during an election cycle. The local GOP did not implement any of desperately needed reforms. Another insider was selected a vice chairman. It was more (actually less) of the same. There was virtually no fundraising; no vetting of candidates; no training or oversight of candidates; no recruitment of LD chairpersons, precinct captains, volunteers or poll workers. In short, the leadership failed, or to be more accurate, the usual backroom wheelers and dealers failed the party; its members; the candidates; and the voters. One bright spot from the insider’s perspective was, I suppose, that 25th Metro Councilman Doug Hawkins lost his race for reelection. Hawkins was a perennial thorn in the side of the Executive Board and only Republican west of I-65. Don’t misconstrue my comments. I’m not picking on Ms. May and no one is blaming her for the local Republican Party’s failures. She was just not adequately prepared for the job in my opinion (as well as others) and the backroom dealmakers deprived the party of the type of leadership it needed.


I think what success there was resulted from the efforts of some Southend conservatives, of which I was one. A friend of mine, Paul Holliger and I had been talking for awhile about the need to turn around the declining Southend. We’re both tired of countless politicians of both stripes promising much and delivering little. We hit upon the idea of political training seminars for Southend conservative candidates (this was to be strictly non-partisan, but other than one Indie, everyone who showed up were Republican). We recruited two former Indies and current Republicans, Ray Pierce and Ed Springston. No one knows drainage and flood issues like Ray. Ed, also a former Labor Democrat, ran for mayor as an Indie, had a pretty popular local radio show called, “My View Matters”.

The format was pretty “candidate intensive”. We focused on just about everything. We did pretty well too. Mike Nemes won the 38th House seat. Wade Hurt won his 37th State Representative seat, though through the disqualification of his opponent (Apparently Wade’s opponent, Jeff Donahue had an ineligible signature on his candidate application form. The matter went to court and Judge Fred Cowan disqualified Donahue from the race (interestingly, I didn’t learn of this until after the fact when I was amusingly told that I was accused of somehow “engineering” the disqualification. I didn’t, but I appreciated the laugh!). Although Renay Davis (whose house we used) lost, she did a spectacular job and came within 183 votes of winning her race in Metro Council District 13. Gail Powers didn’t fare so well in her race for the 44th House seat, and was disqualified, but she picked up some valuable tools for her next race. 46th House candidate Brian Simpson also lost, but put on a pretty good race.

So, there you have it. Locally, the GOP now only controls Metro Council seats east of I-65. The Jefferson County Republican Party has done better in the past. It can do better in the future, but the elitism has to go. However, I will say this, from a personal perspective; I don’t think backroom lobbying has any business in a political party that should be looking to bring out the best in its leadership; its candidates; and its elected officials. After all, isn’t that what they’re always accusing the Democrats of failing to do?

Let me conclude with one final set of predictions from this election cycle. After the appropriate period has passed, I look for a change of party chairperson. I expect the “backroomers” to try and shore up their mistakes and transfer as much of blame as possible elsewhere while retightening their control on the local party structure. They will try to keep out and/or purge any reformers, who also just so happen to be their brightest and most capable.

I think Wade Hurt will have to “double down” to keep his 37th House seat, and that means acting more openly and honestly with Southwest activists. Mike Nemus, who won a close race for the 38th House has all the promise in the world. His next race will be tough. Rumor has it that retired police captain Denver Butler Jr (son of long time 38th State Representative Denver Butler) will run in 2012. 38th State Senator Dan Seum, who’s 70 years old, will likely face an aggressive primary challenge in four years, and if he survives that, an equally hard general election (and the scuttlebutt is that if Senator Seum tries to run any more family members---Dana Seum Stephenson and David Toborowsky come to mind---the same level of challenge can be expected). Lastly, look for yours truly to be calling it as is, but then, you already knew that didn’t you?

Kentucky Election Results

Well, it’s time to face the music. In the last edition I predicted the outcomes of the various races in Jefferson County. Now it’s time to see how well I did.

For the US Senate Seat being vacated by outgoing Jim Bunning (R), I predicated Rand Paul (R) would handily beat Jack Conway (D), and indeed he did! It just wasn’t a win, it was a spanking (56% to 44%). This was the first race of the night called; just 30 minutes after the polls closed! However, I fear we haven’t seen the last of Jack Conway yet.

Democrat John Yarmuth easily kept his 3rd District Congressional seat by defeating Republican Todd Lally as I predicted by 55% to 44%. Lally, who otherwise was a good candidate, simply ran a lackluster campaign and missed numerous opportunities to hang Pelosi and Obama around Yarmuth’s neck.

In the 38th State Senate, Republican Dan Seum won with 61.71% of the vote over Marty Meyer’s 39.29%. No surprise there. Meyer, who was Yarmuth's legislative aide, was outmatched from the get-go. Democrat Larry Clark beat Republican newcomer Brian Simpson for the 46th House seat 55.45% to 44.55%. But, I look for Brian Simpson to be back again, especially if Larry Clark keeps on acting like, well, Larry Clark.

In the 38th House seat, I predicted Mike Nemus (R), also a newcomer, to beat Tim Firkins (D). It was a tight race, 50.95% to 49.05% but Mike came through like the champ he is. Republican Kevin Bratcher beat Democrat Dustin Wilcher as expected with just over 68% of the vote. Political newcomer Aaron Wilson lost to Tom Burch in the 30th House race by a margin of 72.38% to 27.62%. The Republican, Julie Raque Adams won in the 32nd House race against her two opponents with 62.92% of the vote while Republican Ron Crimm beat Democrat Kimberly Greenwell in the 33rd House race 66.44% to 33.56%. Long time 28th State Representative Charlie Miller (D) had no trouble with John Brewer (R) with a 54.86% to 45.14% win. Will the preacher try a third time in 2012?

Bobbi Holsclaw (R) kept her Jefferson County Clerk position by handily defeating Democrat Jack Wood 65.38% to 34.62%. Likewise, Democrat “Colonel” John Aubrey is still the local sheriff after beating Republican Mike Roberts and Indie Don Fitzgerald with 60.85% of the total vote. With 58.3%, Tony Lindaur, the Democrat, beat Republican Corey Keollner and remains the Property Value Administrator By the way, shouldn’t the PVA, Jefferson County Sheriff, and County Clerk be non-partisan positions like the judges are?

In a nail biter, Democrat Greg Fischer won over Republican Hal Heiner by only 2% (51% to 49%). The post election map showed the old county voted overwhelmingly for Heiner while the old city voted just as overwhelmingly for Fischer. What this election clearly demonstrated was that after two terms as mayor by His Excellency, Jerry Abramson, Metro Louisville remains just as divided as it did when Abramson served three terms as Louisville Mayor and the county had a County Judge and three County Commissioners.

Greg Fischer, whom I’ve dubbed as “Abramson Lite” will continue many of the policies of his predecessor (along with keeping several of Abramson’s staff members) and the residents of the county will become angrier over the lack of representation they (rightly) believed they are getting from City Hall, especially as the city government continues to move its crime problems out of the West End and into the Southwest portions of the county in order to “revitalized” the downtown Louisville. Rumor has it that former mayor Dave Armstrong and former state Representative Ron Weston of Fairdale will be the new deputy mayors under Fischer. If so, they will be the opening blunders of the new administration.

There wasn’t much change or interest in most of the races for Metro Council (which I usually refer to the Metro Soviet given its past lockstep devotion to His Excellency, Jerry Abramson) as expected, with three exceptions. The first was Metro Council District 13 which pitted incumbent Democrat Vicki Welch against activist and Republican Renay Davis. As I wrote in the last issue, residents of Fairdale have faired pretty well under Metro government while the rest of the district has received little to nothing. Residents have seen an increase in Section 8 housing, and corresponding crime related matters despite assurances to the contrary. A hotly contested race, Ms. Welch won by a mere 219 votes (51.88% to 48.12%). I just hope the residents of District 13 haven’t lost their opportunity to turn things around.

Hal Heiner decided to vacate his Metro Council District 19 seat in order to run for Mayor. Republican and all around good guy Jerry T. Miller stepped up and convincingly defeated his Democrat challenger, Justin Chelf by 74.36% to 25.64%.

The third Metro Council race of note was in the 25th where incumbent Doug Hawkins (R) took on David Yates, the Democrat and lost 51.3% to 48.7%. As I said previously, Doug has done a lot for the residents of District 25, but he committed the cardinal mistake of underestimating his opponent. Throughout, Doug thought that his past performances, which were considerable, would carry him through. Doug failed to fundraise; to do mailers; and to walk his district. In short, he didn’t do his homework. I’ve heard good things about David Yates (I meet him once at a union endorsement forum). I think the residents of Metro 25 will do well by him, however, I don’t think they will see the kind of voice they had in Doug Hawkins.

While the Democrats took a shellacking nationally, the biggest loser of the night was the National Republican Party. How can that be with so many GOP victories across the country? Because the majority of these victories were by Tea Party candidates who just so happened to have an “R” behind their names this time. The Establishment Republicans (think Mitch McConnell) lost big in this election cycle. They lost it in the Republican Primaries along with what was left of the GOP moderates. Rand Paul and other incoming Tea Partiers have already agreed to form a Tea Party caucus. I applaud them for following through on their promises to the American People. It will be interesting to see how the two sides work together going into the next congressional session in dealing with the Democrats and Obama.

Locally, the Republican Party demonstrated for all to see just how poorly organized and led they are. While the GOP picked up two state house seats in Southwest Jefferson County, it was through no thanks to the local GOP leadership, but instead by a well organized and dedicated group of Southend conservatives (who were also active in some other Southwest campaigns). The Metro Council is now solely Republican east of I-65 and solidly Democrat west of I-65; all as it was originally intended some eight years ago when the metro government came about. The Democrats now control 17 seats on Metro Council to the Republicans 9 seats, making the GOP all but redundant.

So, how did I fare in my predictions? Pretty well I think. Of the races I weighed in on, I missed only three while I was correct on 20.