Now that the elections in Kentucky are finished until March of 2016, I would like to offer my analysis. The main contest of course being for the Governor's seat. The polling since this past May showed that Jack Conway held the lead. This of course would cause one that took the polls to heart to be flabbergasted at what transpired last night. Matt Bevin the Republican won convincingly. It wasnt a landslide, but it was to the point where it couldn't even be contested. Democrats, which usually benefit from the presence of third party candidates, are already complaining that Independent Candidate Drew Curtis cost Jack Conway the election.
As you can see, even if everyone that voted for Drew Curtis voted for Jack Conway, it still would not have been near enough to close the gap. This is the age old and debunked argument that both parties have used to justify their continued attempts to discriminate against third party candidate challenges.
In other Kentucky election news, It was not all bad news for the Kentucky Democrat Party as Alison Lundergan Grimes keeps her seat.
Winning for the Democratic Party last night was Andy Beshear, son of exiting Governor Steve Beshear who claims he ran and won on his own merit but anyone with two brain cells to rub together would know otherwise. This would be the tightest race of the night as Beshear would win by approximately 2200 votes.
Other than those two offices, the Kentucky GOP ran the tables with the rest of the offices. Matt Bevin becomes only the second GOP Governor in the last 40 years. Sixty of the last sixty-eight years in Kentucky have been under a Democrat Governor. This begs the question, why has Kentucky seemingly made this transition toward a more conservative stance. Typically Kentucky has voted GOP when it comes to national seats like the President, Senator, US Representative, but usually has voted Democrat when it comes to state positions.
With Governor-Elect Matt Bevin set to take control, many pundits are already spreading widespread hysteria and apocalyptic warnings about the actions Matt Bevin wants to take. They are already warning users of KYNECT, the state instituted healthcare exchange, that Bevin wants to make people sick and kill them by taking their healthcare away from them. Just a disclaimer, I am one of those people that is registered for health insurance via KYNECT. They are already spreading fear about the state's pension program and Bevin's ideas about switching the state's pension program over to 401K type programs. People are already exclaiming that Bevin hates police, fire, and ems. This of course is a complete joke because Bevin is a Veteran and I havent ran across many if at all any veterans that dislike our Police, Fire, and EMS.
No doubt the election last night sent shock waves and messages to the political establishment throughout the state. However I think many are over exaggerating changes that are perceived. Matt Bevin might have promised a lot of things to get elected however, if I were a betting man, I would say that more than half of the changes he said he would make wont even be considered, and the other half would be spread out over the next 4 years. I guaranty you that he is already considering being re-elected in 2019.
Ill close with how I spent my evening last night. I chose to attend the post election party that Fark.com founder and CEO Independent Drew Curtis had in Lexington last night. It was fun with beer and good people just having a good ol time.
No comments:
Post a Comment