Kentucky Conservatives Unite!
First in a series
Can Kentucky conservatives agree on ‘non-negotiables’ and retake the Office of Governor in 2023? Can we work as a team to win the 2022 General Election races?
Here begins a blog series to remind us of the past— so history won’t repeat itself. We will look at many factors that led up to the election of Andy Beshear in 2019.
The loss of Gov. Matt Bevin has been as devastating for Kentucky as Joe Biden’s presidency is to America. With the Republican popularity in our state, how and why did this defeat occur?
With the current clashes between and among many who run as Republicans, we should wonder: Are we once again setting ourselves up?
A numbing defeat
Bevin was perceived as an enemy by many of Kentucky’s 42,304 public school teachers. This misperception was engineered by the mainstream media, because he certainly showed genuine interest in helping teachers and he ended the underfunding of their retirement system.
With the teachers’ votes in question, Gov. Bevin needed the loyalty of all conservatives. If we wanted a conservative governor, we needed to vote Republican.
In the 2019 election, Andy Beshear got 709,890 votes, Matt Bevin 704,754, and Libertarian John Hicks 28,433. There were 46 write-in votes. Beshear got only 5,136 votes more than Bevin.
Perhaps the first ‘unity’ lesson conservatives must learn is to be vigilant: Find out how a third party candidate joins a race— late. According to the Courier-Journal, Hicks threw his hat in the ring because a judge permitted that, after the filing deadline had passed.
After a federal judge temporarily blocked a new section of a state law related to filing deadlines, a Libertarian Party candidate has officially joined the 2019 race to become Kentucky's next governor. (C-J)
Splitting the ‘conservative’ ticket
For that matter, beware of all third-party candidates. Do they hold conservative values? See Hicks’ Libertarian platform statements.
In general, Libertarians oppose ‘government regulated morality,’ which they regard as a Republican overreach. Is this your view?
Do you favor an America where ‘anything goes’ with human sexuality, abortion, and marriage, where restraints against classic moral standards are more and more removed? In contrast to the Libertarian position, the Republican Party Platform states, for example:
Our laws and our government’s regulations should recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman and actively promote married family life as the basis of a stable and prosperous society. For that reason, as explained elsewhere in this platform, we do not accept the Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage and we urge its reversal, whether through judicial reconsideration or a constitutional amendment returning control over marriage to the states. We oppose government discrimination against businesses or entities which decline to sell items or services to individuals for activities that go against their religious views about such activities. (Republican Platform document)
(This is quite different from the Democrat Party Platform document.)
John Hicks stated:
Love is a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. Supporting Kentuckians who are gender and sexuality minorities falls under our campaign themes of liberty and civility. On the liberty front, there are many different conceptions of the good life and everyone should be free to choose their own identify, their own relationship status, their own best life. As Libertarians, we believe it is not up to the government to say who you can or cannot be, or who you can or cannot love.
Hicks especially favored legalization of cannabis and all drugs. In part he supported the complete legalization of Cannabis/hemp to increase revenue. To that end he also favored consideration of expanded gambling. (Read more.)
Bear in mind that when Colorado (as an example) legalized recreational marijuana, related traffic deaths rose by 151 percent and all traffic deaths increased 35 percent. Many more negatives were tracked. The MADD mothers reposted a pdf with the statistics. Related tax revenues only rose nine tenths (0.9) of one (1.0) percent. Violent crime increased 18.6 percent. We’re getting a little off track.
Voting as a block
The state of Kentucky officially recognizes two political parties; the many other groups that promote a candidate are minorities without the same force.
Will you consider holding your nose and voting for a Republican who has offended your sensibilities, with whom you may disagree on some issues? As the Kentucky state motto says, United We Stand, Divided We Fall.
Jenean Hampton stated for the record: “I'm Libertarian-leaning. I'm Republican, but leaning Libertarian,” she said. “But I just couldn't vote for him (Bevin).”
Newsmax noted that Bevin “almost surely would have been claiming victory had it not been for the Libertarian nominee, since the razor-thin, 5,333-vote difference between the major party candidates was more than made up for by Hicks' 28,436….
“The pattern of Democrats winning races with pluralities and Libertarians making the differences is a familiar one. In 2012, according to a chart prepared by the left-of-center news outlet Daily Kos, there were no fewer than nine contests for the U.S. Senate, House, and governor in which the Libertarian nominee received more votes than the difference between the winning Democrat and losing Republican.”
Will Kentucky conservatives once again hand the 2022 and ‘23 races to liberals because the Republican candidates are not Libertarian-leaning?
Please watch for the next post in this series. The plan is to publish on Wednesday mornings.