Negative Politics

Due to threats made against me, I have had no choice but to delete this post.

That all said, I will say this on the matter: people need thick skin if they plan to run for office.

UPDATE on August 24, 2015: I have decided to re-post the article that was originally here despite the threats made against me by Jean-Marie Lawson Spann and her family back in January 2015.  I will stress this at the utmost importance in that I am not going to be voting for her during the 2015 General Election for State Agricultural Commissioner.

Original article as was posted in 2005:

When I started this blog, I did not and I repeat I did not think it would get this many readers to where I could break stories like this. I had been figuring that some sort of deal went down involving Jean-Marie Lawson and it did go down. She is on path to be Vice-Chair of the Kentucky Democratic Party and I don't like the sound of it as that will lead to a run for state office (maybe Treasurer?). I was just emailed by an anonymous source on the State Central Committee, I'm going to break the story now. This is because of the feuding going on over at BlueGrass Roots, Last Sane Man, and my own blog. Bloggers are becoming prominent figures in the world. They were the first to describe the events after the tsunami just as cell-phones were the case in New York and Washington after 9/11.

Deals did go down at the meeting both BEFORE and DURING the meeting. My personal opinion on this is that if this is indeed the case, then here is my vote of NO CONFIDENCE IN JERRY LUNDERGAN.

The issue is not what Jerry Lundergan did 18 years ago. It is what he wants to do to the party now. Check out this article: He thinks that Greg Stumbo should run the party -- no matter what he says now. And he wants to take us back to the time when power and patronage rules, and deals were done in back rooms in Frankfort. Just look at 2 of the many deals he cut to get elected Chair: 

1) Bill Ryan: Bill was on the Nominating Committee and, at the same time, wanted to run for Chair. He was so committed to running that he started shouting at Jonathon Miller when Miller suggested there was a conflict in being on the committee and running at the same time.
Then, all of the sudden, he dropped out of the race. He immediately became the deciding vote that sent Jerry Lundergan to the Central Committee, and acted as a campaign manager -- calling up delegates to vote for Jerry. Now, he has a paid job (Executive Director?) at the party. Is this all a coincidence? Hardly! Because of this shady deal, we have a senior staff member at HQ who has little to no experience in the modern technologies of campaigns. That is the problem of the good-ole-boy network.

2) Jean-Marie Lawson: I know many of the bloggers are fans of hers, but you need to know the facts. Jean-Marie has had a deal with Jerry to be his Vice-Chair since the first time he ran a year ago. This year, she set up a YD meeting before the Central Committee meeting to bring Jerry in and get the blessing of the YDs. She promised that she would vote as instructed by the YDs. But when Jerry came in, he was very unimpressive (gave her cash in front of everyone!), and the YDs voted NOT to endorse him. Yet Jean-Marie voted for him anyway! Why? Guess who is in line to be Vice-Chair of the party?!!! I doubt many young people like the idea that we should have leaders decided by deals, instead of the value of their ideas!

I don't like deals made in party politics and this source says it all. This is not the way to rebuild our state party. Grassroots will step up now.

Our state party does not have the technology nor the leadership qualities that it needs to run the campaigns we need to run. Patronage is not the answer to our problems.