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Gov. Ernie Fletcher's concession speech
Politically wounded and unable to offer a compelling message to voters, Gov. Ernie Fletcher failed to win a second four-year term as Kentuckians overwhelmingly swept Democrat Steve Beshear into office yesterday.
Beshear, a lieutenant governor and attorney general in the 1980s, completed an unlikely political comeback by winning the governor's office -- a position he sought unsuccessfully 20 years ago.
He defeated Fletcher by about 17 percentage points, according to unofficial returns.
"Folks, the people of this state have spoken and they've handed the reins of this state to us," Beshear declared, before calling for unity. "We all have one thing in common: Tomorrow we're all going to be Kentuckians."
Fletcher, in a gracious concession speech, described his administration's accomplishments as seeds for growth and urged his supporters to pull together behind Beshear.
"The voters have made up their mind. I accept their decision," he said. "And I'll leave this office grateful for the privilege to have served, comforted with the knowledge that every decision I made, I made with a clear conscience."
Fletcher humbly referenced the trials that come with the office.
"As someone once said, high office brings distinction, but also trouble," he said. "I wish I had seen that more clearly when I stood here flush with victory four years ago."
The first Republican governor since 1971, Fletcher struggled to rebound from the political fallout of the state hiring investigation that led to indictments and pardons before being settled in a 2006 agreement with prosecutors.
As a result, he saw a reversal of his 10-point election victory in 2003.
During that race he pledged to "clean up the mess in Frankfort," a similar theme to Beshear's call for "new leadership" and ethics in government this fall.
Beshear's 17-point margin over Fletcher, though decisive, wasn't among the most lopsided wins in a governor's race. But the 619,000 votes Beshear garnered is the most ever for a Kentucky gubernatorial candidate.
En route to setting that record, Beshear collected wide support across the state, isolating Fletcher's base to 23 south-central counties in the "Old Fifth" congressional district and five other counties.
Even in those counties, Fletcher's margins of victory from 2003 shriveled. He won Wayne County, a GOP stronghold, by just 4 votes after nearly doubling Democrat Ben Chandler's total there four years ago. Fletcher, of Lexington, and running mate Robbie Rudolph, a Murray resident, even lost their home counties.
Beshear, meanwhile, fared well in urban areas -- even conservative Northern Kentucky, where he won Kenton and Campbell counties.
Fletcher, the second Kentucky governor able to seek re-election after a state constitutional change in 1992, became the state's first sitting governor to lose a bid for a second term.
The night started poorly for Fletcher, with early returns from Louisville and Lexington showing a nearly 30-point deficit. Fletcher, earlier yesterday, predicted he'd have a late boost from rural counties.
Observers said the governor should have seen the wave coming, considering his job approval rating had remained at or below 40 percent for more than two years.
"It's rare that you see an incumbent so soundly beaten like this," said Richard Fording, associate professor of political science at the University of Kentucky. "And most of the time, you have an incumbent who at least sees this coming. It sounds like a man who has been in denial about this for a while."
Haunted by pardons
Fletcher was dogged by political problems since early in his term but none more damaging than the investigation into improper state hirings that led a grand jury to indict 15 people, including the governor.
Fletcher issued broad pardons to his administration in August 2005, an act that 57 percent of Kentuckians polled in September said was a misuse of his power.
Ted Jackson, a Republican campaign consultant and critic of Fletcher, said he understood that the governor made that move to shield aides from further legal bills. But it proved politically devastating.
"The defining moment for so many people was the pardons, and that could not be overcome," Jackson said.
Beshear subtly reminded voters about the hiring investigation in campaign remarks, saying Kentucky needs "new leadership" and promising an ethical government.
Fording said Beshear shrewdly highlighted Fletcher's weakness without overselling it in over-the-top ads.
"He didn't have to -- that's pretty clear," Fording said. "Voters had pretty firm feelings about Fletcher, and (Beshear) stayed above the fray."
An outside group largely funded by the Democratic Governors Association, the Bluegrass Freedom Fund, did run dagger-like ads using Fletcher's own words from his December 2003 inauguration in which he promised to "create an ethical government."
Struggling to respond
Fletcher, on the other hand, spent much of the campaign groping for a message that resonated with voters.
The governor's campaign first seized on Beshear's call for a constitutional amendment to allow casinos in Kentucky -- slapping a "No Casinos" slogan on campaign materials and running six TV ads about it. He also criticized Beshear's role as a lawyer during the Kentucky Central Life Insurance Co. liquidation in the 1990s.
Fletcher then focused on his accomplishments, including restructuring Medicaid and the passage of screening requirements for newborns. He finished the race with a flurry of attempts to hit on so-called values issues by displaying the Ten Commandments in the Capitol rotunda and criticizing Beshear for receiving the endorsement of a gay and lesbian rights advocacy group.
None had an effect.
Larry Forgy, a former GOP gubernatorial candidate and staunch Fletcher supporter, attributed the governor's loss to an expensive GOP primary election in the spring.
He specifically said he was displeased with former U.S. Rep. Anne Northup, who challenged Fletcher in the primary, and U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell.
"We are a fractured party right now," said Forgy, who said he might challenge McConnell as an independent candidate next year.
J. Scott Jennings, McConnell's state political director in 2002, argued that McConnell "did all he could do for Fletcher," including airing radio ads in his hometown of Louisville for the governor. "He's a party of one," Jennings said of Forgy.
Reversal from 2003
The atmosphere during this campaign was sharply different from four years ago, when Fletcher harnessed Republican enthusiasm and captured broad support from independent and conservative Democratic Party voters with his reform message.
This year's numbers tell a different story.
Fletcher, a thrice-elected former congressman from Central Kentucky, lost in his home county of Fayette by 18 points after winning it by nearly 9 points in 2003.
And despite the billing -- by himself and McConnell in radio ads -- as one of the best governors for Jefferson County, he lost in the state's most populous county by more than 30 percentage points.
Even in Laurel County, the heart of Republican Kentucky territory, Fletcher stumbled with 60.7 percent of the vote compared with the 74 percent he received there in 2003.
Jeanne Robinson, 37, a GOP voter from London, said she pulled the lever for Beshear because Fletcher's handling of the hiring investigation was "embarrassing."
"I haven't been satisfied with Ernie Fletcher," she said. "I don't think he's done as good a job as I would have hoped as a Republican."
