By Patrick Crowley
The Cincinnati Enquirer

COVINGTON - One of Northern Kentucky Republicans' greatest victories was a loss.

After home builder Ralph Drees lost the 1981 Kenton County commission race to Democratic incumbent Charlie Summe by just 148 votes, the local GOP realized that after decades of Democratic dominance, Republicans were ready to surge.

"Everybody looked at that race and said, 'Holy cow, we can win countywide,' " said Fort Mitchell lawyer Rick Robinson, a veteran GOP strategist.

Since the early 1980s, Republicans have been on a blazing growth spurt, winning elections at a dominant pace and establishing the region as Kentucky's GOP stronghold.

That clout will be recognized this weekend.

For the first time ever, the Kentucky Republican Party will have its nominating convention Saturday at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center.

From virtually no officeholders in the early 1980s, the GOP today holds all three county judge-executive seats (Drees is now Kenton County judge-executive), dominates two of the three county courthouses, has the majority of the region's statehouse seats and turns out huge margins for statewide and federal candidates.

Democrats grudgingly give the Republicans credit, but they also blame themselves for the GOP takeover.

"A lot of Democrats got lazy. They didn't vote, or they stayed home," said former state lawmaker Bill Donnermeyer, 79, a Bellevue Democrat who retired in 1994 after 25 years in Frankfort.

But longtime Democratic strategist Paul Vesper, a Covington lawyer, compares political success to cicada infestations.

"It's periodic, it comes in cycles," Vesper said. "With success come controversies. Look at the number of Republican primaries we have now. It is a sign of strength, but it's also a sign of factions being formed within the Republican Party.

"Sooner or later, that will help the pendulum swing back to the Democrats," he said.

Local Republican leaders and strategists point to several reasons for the GOP's strength.

• Population shifts. In 1980, much of Northern Kentucky's population and Democratic base were concentrated in Covington and Newport.

As Northern Kentucky grew, the river cities lost population. At the same time, the region's suburbs boomed. Many of the new suburbanites were Republicans.

• Boone County. In 1980, Republicans were outnumbered in Boone County by about 3 to 1. Today, it is the largest GOP-controlled county in the state.

• National politics. Even in their heyday, Democrats in Northern Kentucky had little in common with the party's more liberal elected officials on the east and west coasts.

But Republicans have been effective in aligning local candidates with national Democrats such as former President Clinton, whose sex scandal did damage here.

"Admittedly, the local and state Democrats are not as liberal as their national leaders, but they are nonetheless tainted by the image of the national Democrats," said GOP adviser Jeff Schlosser, a Fort Thomas lawyer.

• Jim Bunning. His election to the region's 4th Congressional District seat in 1986 helped set the stage for GOP success. Bunning, a Southgate Republican, beat Newport Democrat Terry Mann in that race and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1998.

"We knew in that race that the future of both parties was at stake," said Robinson, Bunning's former congressional aide.

"We put the power of the 4th District congressman behind local candidates to help them win."

• Execution. For the most part, Republicans have proven to be better campaigners than Democrats.

"We have a great organization in place," Kenton County GOP Chairman Greg Shumate said, boasting of a system that melds technology, polling, voter trends and shoe leather to get voters to the polls.

"We can go into Latonia, tell you who votes, how often they vote, who the contact person is, who the local leaders are and what issues are important to them," Shumate said. "We use it in every election. And it works."

E-mail pcrowley@enquirer.com