Tradeoff in the bluegrass: Parties switch Kentucky House seats
(AllPolitics, November 3) -- Two competitive open House seats in Kentucky have switched parties, with a Republican picking up a Democratic-held seat in the 6th congressional district and a Democrat returning the favor in the 4th.
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Ernie Fletcher
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In the 6th district, a Lexington-area seat being vacated by Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Scotty Baesler, voters chose GOP former state legislator Ernie Fletcher over Democratic state Sen. Ernesto Scorsone.
In the 4th district, which stretches through the northern part of the state along the Ohio River, Democrat Ken Lucas defeated state Rep. Gex "Jay" Williams. The seat is now held by GOP Rep. Jim Bunning, who gave it up to challenge Baesler for the Senate.
Despite the Republican bent of the district, Lucas was able to hold his own because he is about as conservative a Democrat as can be found. He is pro-life, supported the GOP-proposed tax cut and opposes gun control. Some moderate Republicans defected to his campaign.
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Ken Lucas
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The Democrat also made headlines by openly shunning President Bill Clinton when he traveled to Kentucky in September. "I made the decision not to see him the moment this mess came down," Lucas said at the time.
Williams had to fight off ethics charges during the campaign. He had been accused of making campaign phone calls from his statehouse office and improperly reporting the sale of land to a political ally to support his family while he campaigned. He also allegedly indicated that he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy when in fact he left in his second year.
Both candidates are pro-life, pro-gun and pro-school prayer.
In the 6th district, Fletcher ran two years ago, drawing 44 percent against the popular Baesler. Scorsone won his party's nomination with just 24 percent of the vote, defeating five other credible Democratic contenders.
The Fletcher-Scorsone was an ideological struggle, with each candidate presenting himself as closer to the political mainstream and portraying his opponent as out-of-touch.
Scorsone likes to portray himself as a moderate, but he was the most liberal candidate in the primary and won the endorsement of the state AFL-CIO and the Kentucky Education Association. He is also pro-choice.
Fletcher, who is pro-life, has been a strong fund-raiser, and his more conservative views were an asset in this district.
President Bill Clinton narrowly carried Kentucky in 1992 and again in his 1996 re-election campaign. But Democrats have hardly shared in the president's success. Not long ago, they outnumbered Republicans four to two in Kentucky's six-member House delegation. Going into the 1998 election, it was a five-to-one Republican advantage.
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