Friday, April 16, 1999
Lucas to avoid GOP's top hope
Draud decides against challenge
BY PATRICK CROWLEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
CRESTVIEW HILLS — Republican State Rep. Jon Draud, who local GOP leaders had hoped would challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Ken Lucas next year, said Thursday he won't run for the 4th District congressional seat.
Mr. Draud, 60, a Crestview Hills Republican and a former superintendent of Ludlow schools, said he wants to serve in the Statehouse seat he was just elected to in November.
“The timing is not right,” said Mr. Draud, who teaches education at Northern Kentucky University. “I was elected to go to Frankfort, and I need to serve there first.”
Members of Mr. Lucas' staff and political camp could not be reached to comment.
Mr. Draud's decision means Republican Party leaders will have to continue the search for a candidate to take on Mr. Lucas, a first-term Boone County Democrat elected to a U.S. House seat the GOP had held for more than three decades.
“Obviously, I thought Jon would make a great candidate,” said Kentucky GOP Vice Chairman Damon Thayer of Grant County. “But I respect his decision not to run.”
Even U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, the Southgate Republican who held the 4th District seat for six terms until winning election to the Senate last year, tried to persuade Mr. Draud to run.
Mr. Draud said he and Mr. Bunning met last week to talk about the race.
“I met with Jim Bunning, and I'm very pleased with how that went,” Mr. Draud said.
“Nothing happened or was said in that meeting that helped me make up my mind not to run. I just got elected, and I need to go down to Frankfort and do the job the voters elected me to do,” he said.
The GOP will now turn its attention to two other potential candidates:
• Villa Hills attorney Lawson Walker, a former party official who served in the General Assembly and ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor.
• State Sen. Katie Stine, a Fort Thomas Republican who has never lost a Statehouse race.
Neither sounded Thursday as if they were ready to leap into the race.
Mr. Walker said Thursday he is “still thinking about it” but would not elaborate.
Mrs. Stine was equally coy, saying, “I haven't ruled it out, but I'm not actively pursuing it.”
Despite not yet having a candidate, Mr. Thayer said he is confident about the GOP's chances of retaking the seat next November.
“There's going to be a coattail effect in the 4th District that is going to be significant” because of next year's presidential race, Mr. Thayer said.
“Bob Dole carried the 4th District by 10 points in 1996 against an incumbent president and with a viable third-party candidate (Ross Perot) in the race,” he said. “In the 2000 race, the Republican candidate could carry the 4th by 15 points.
“And Ken Lucas can forget about coattails. (Vice President) Al Gore is going to be the Democrats' candidate, and he'll be an albatross about Ken Lucas' neck,” Mr. Thayer said.
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