Sunday, January 24, 1999
GOP opposing Patton weakly
No strong figure steps up to run
BY PATRICK CROWLEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
FORT MITCHELL — It was the Saturday after the Nov. 3 election and the Republicans gathered at the GOP's State Central Committee meeting in Louisville were feeling confident, even a little cocky.
The party posted big gains in the election, taking five of the state's six Congressional seats, electing Southgate's Jim Bunning to the U.S. Senate and dominating local elections in growing Republican bastions like Northern Kentucky.
With the 1998 elections behind them, Republicans at that meeting began talk of setting the party's sights on beating Democrat Gov. Paul Patton — the first governor this century allowed to seek a second term — in the November 1999 election.
Mr. Bunning even boasted of personally working “to take Paul Patton down.”
But with just two days before the filing deadlinefor this year's governor's race, Republicans have yet to field a strong, well-known candidate to run against Mr. Patton.
Democrats claim some of the big names Republicans mentioned early on as possible gubernatorial contenders have not jumped in the race because Mr. Patton can't be beaten.
“The answer is pretty obvious,” said Crestview Hills attorney David Kramer, a member of the Kenton County Democratic Executive Committee who is active in state politics.
“Paul Patton has done a very good job and is a very popular governor,” he said. “If they thought they could beat him, they would have run somebody by now.”
Republicans say Mr. Patton, who barely beat Larry Forgy in the 1995 race, is vulnerable.
But party leaders claim a campaign finance law that was passed by the Democratic-controlled state legislature and
used for the first time in that '95 gubernatorial race is actually an “incumbent protection bill” that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for a sitting Democratic governor to be beaten.
“The Democrats are not stupid,” said Republican Party Chairman Randy Kammerdiener. “They know this state has been trending Republican, that the Republican Party has been on the upswing in recent years.
“And they knew one way to keep the minority party down was to pass a law that gave them a built-in advantage and made it so a Republican couldn't spend enough money to compete,” he said.
The law, which many Republicans supported when it was passed, works like this:
• Candidates receive $1.2 million in taxpayer money for the primary and general elections if they agree to raise only $600,000 per race. That works out to each candidate spending $1.8 million.
• Candidates don't have to participate in the fund-raising limits and can raise and spend as much as they like. But the candidate who is following the law's stipulations receives an additional $2 in public money for every $1 raised by the candidate not participating.
• The maximum contribution an individual can make to a candidate is $1,000 — $500 each during the primary and general elections.
The law was passed after Democrat Brereton Jones spent more than $7 million in winning the 1991 race.
During the 1995 race, Mr. Forgy, a Lexington Republican who lost to Mr. Patton by less than 25,000 votes out of about 1 million cast, seemed to like the spending limits.
A dynamic speaker, Mr. Forgy told The Enquirer during the campaign that the law forced the candidates to appear at debates and forums all over the state, an aspect of campaigning he enjoyed and excelled at.
“Without a lot of money to spend on ads and other things, we have to go out and meet the people and let them hear us and see us,” Mr. Forgy said. “And that's good for the people of Kentucky.”
But Republicans now claim the law curtails a candidate's ability to to mount a credible, winning campaign.
“Two million dollars just isn't enough to go out and build name recognition with advertising and organization,” said eastern Kentucky banker Mike Duncan, a Republican National Committee member Northern Kentucky Republicans had pushed to take on Mr. Patton.
“And even if you decided to bypass the law and raise and spend more, you're opponent gets $2 for every $1 you raise. A Republican would just have too difficult a time in that environment against an incumbent,” he said.
Mr. Duncan, Mr. Forgy, Lexington businessman Jim Host, Somerset Congressman Hal Rogers and lawmakers Stan Cave and Steve Nunn have all decided to sit the race out.
The only Republican running is a little-known public relations professional from Hardin County, Peppy Martin.
State Rep. Brian Crall, R-Owensboro, and eastern Kentucky attorney Will T. Scott of Pikeville, a former judge and the party's unsuccessful attorney general candidate in 1995, said last week they'll decide over the weekend whether they'll run.
Others are trying to recruit Chris Ratliff, an eastern Kentucky lawmaker, into the race.
Richard Beliles, chairman of Common Cause Kentucky, a campaign finance watchdog group, said the Republicans are exaggerating the impact of the spending limits under the law.
“Partial public financing of campaigns has been good to Republicans,” he said. “They won half of the presidential races where it was used and the one time it has been used in Kentucky they came within 21,000 votes of winning the governor's race.”
Walton attorney Mark Guilfoyle, a key member of Mr. Patton's re-election team, said Republican claims that campaign finance laws favor Democrats is “laughable.”
“Without public financing and spending limits, Paul Patton would have blown off Larry Forgy's doors in 1995,” Mr. Guilfoyle said. “He would have easily out-raised and out-spent Larry Forgy.
“The law gave them a fighting chance in '95, but this year they just don't have a candidate to compete with Paul Patton,” he said.
Pope's visit stirs particular passion
Why should gun safety be optional?
Flood waters yield bodies
Ex-Miami students declare innocence
Ft. Washington Way closing for 3 nights this week
Medicaid expansion supported
Spending surplus on pork shameful
Dick Clark tunes into Keith Glover
'Sunday Morning' celebrates 20 years of touting the arts
Her prejudices went away
Now yakking on a TV near you: Mitch
The land of the brazen
Women take center stage
What is women's theater?
Women's theatre schedule
Covington likes idea of a college
GOP opposing Patton weakly
Hamilton town meeting focus is race
Horrors of Holocaust unveiled for high school students
Latin rises from grave in local schools
Lebanon loses woods soon
New housing for Newport considered key
Newport Aquarium offers memberships
TRISTATE DIGEST
Waiting list growing faster than organ donations
