Ernie Fletcher lost yesterday’s election because he walked through a gauntlet of bullies and didn't fight back, largely because he never really had anything to fight for. Turning the other cheek is a great rule of personal behavior but it is a poor substitute for a governing philosophy.
Political leaders succeed for one of two reasons, sometimes both: they either have a simple, straightforward vision that they prosecute relentlessly, or they play the political game well--and enjoy it.
I have it on good authority that on at least one cabinet appointment, Ronald Reagan called the candidate in, handed him a single sheet of paper and said, “Can you do this?” The person read it and said, “Yes, Sir.” Then the President led him down the hall to the press room and announced his choice. Reagan could put his priorities on one sheet of paper because he knew what he was about: lower taxes, smaller government, and a stronger military.
If anyone were to ask what the Fletcher administration was about, they would have a hard time coming up with an answer. It was a malady that plagued the administration from the beginning to the end: No one knew what Ernie Fletcher stood for.
Some have defended the administration on this count, saying that it wasn't a lack of vision, just an inability to articulate it. But the poor communication was a result of the lack of vision, not vice-versa. I was talking to a reporter one day who told me that whenever he tried to get comment from the administration on an issue, he was told they would get back to him, and they would--but so late that the story would already have been filed. Reporters finally got so fed up with the inability to get answers from Fletcher spokespersons that they began calling Larry Forgy instead.
Larry Forgy is a formidable communicator, but why did the media have to go outside the administration to find out what the administration's positions were? Why couldn't Fletcher's own people give answers to those who asked?
The temptation was to blame it on the governor's staff, but that would be a mistake. Many good people sacrificed of themselves to help the administration, but refusal to lead doesn't just hamper the prospects of the guy at the top. It is probably too much to ask of the kingmakers in Kentucky Republican politics to read Shakespeare's King Henry VI before they take it upon themselves again to coronate the next gubernatorial nominee (as they did in Fletcher's case) so they can see what happens to those who follow a leader who refuses to engage in leadership.
It occurred to me one day that what the Fletcher administration needed was a Tony Snow: an articulate member of the media itself who shared the governing philosophy of the administration and who could articulate it competently. But a Tony Snow could never have operated in the Fletcher administration, since there was no detectable governing philosophy by which they could anticipate an administration position.
No administration can communicate with the public competently if its spokespersons have to go up the chain of command for an answer on every single issue. The indecision at the top stifled every aspect of the administration.
Because he never had a sense of what his administration was about, Fletcher delayed making decisions on important issues, and sometimes never made them at all. This pattern could be seen over and over again.
It was for this reason that the hiring investigation hurt the Fletcher administration so badly. It wasn't because of some diabolic plan on Fletcher's part to violate the sanctity of merit positions. This issue itself was never a big concern to Kentuckians: they expect a governor to want to put his own people in positions of authority. That's why they elect him in first place: to change things.
Nor were the pardons the reason for his unpopularity. He was right in making the pardons: his only mistake was taking so long to do it.
There was a point in the midst of the investigation when the chatter on the radio talk shows was about how fed up everyone was with the whole affair. Fletcher should have seized the moment and told Greg Stumbo that the administration needed to get on with the business of the people, and that the Attorney General had till the end of the week to produce indictments, if he could. And if he couldn’t, he, the Governor, would issue automatic pardons to everyone who got one after the deadline.
Despite Fletcher’s statements that the investigation was political, he acted as if it really was a legal battle, and refused to take political actions that would have at least minimized the damage. Fletcher’s indecision allowed Stumbo to manhandle him and paint him as corrupt.
That’s what happens when you leave your political enemies an empty canvas—and when you can’t make a decision. The merit investigation did not damage Fletcher because of what the Fletcher administration did. It damaged the Fletcher administration because of what it didn't do.
There are already critics saying that the election, which Fletcher lost by substantial numbers, is somehow reflective of where he stood on social issues. Where Fletcher stood on social issues had nothing to do with it; when he took a stand on them did.
He was a late convert to the opposition to domestic partner benefits. His critics asked why, if he opposed the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville's plans to give health benefits to the live-in sexual partners of their staff, he didn't call the trustees he had appointed to ask them to oppose them. Good question.
Even his much-touted support for the Marriage Amendment came after intense pressure from social conservatives. Fletcher's initial statements cast doubt on whether the Amendment was needed at all, and he only lent his support to the effort when thousands of Amendment supporters showed up on the steps of the State Capitol building.
His position on expanded gambling too was an instance of a death bed political conversion. Throughout his administration Fletcher had consistently refused to take a position on expanded gambling, despite articulate pleas from those who thought they were his political allies. He has been criticized for highlighting the issue during the campaign, but it was not a bad tactic: he needed to give his base something to get them to the polls. But it was too little, too late.
I remember showing up to testify during the 2007 General Assembly session against a bill that would have mandated HPV vaccinations for middle school girls. After having been told that the administration was against it too, I remember being surprised when an administration cabinet official showed up at the meeting--to testify in favor of the bill!
And is anyone wondering why the State School Board looks confused in its attempt to find someone to fill the commissioner's position? Ten bucks says the board members don’t know what the Fletcher education agenda is—or whether he even has one.
No wonder so many of the positions he took late in the campaign looked like political ploys. When you wait to take positions on issues until the buzzards start circling, it begins to look suspiciously like an act of political desperation.
Even if Fletcher had known what he stood for, he simply didn’t know how to wield power. He never understood the mystique of the governor's office. After recovering from what turned out to be a fairly serious illness, he came out of his room and appeared before cameras in his hospital pajamas. Sorry, but no governor who understands the importance of a public persona would address the cameras in his pajamas. No one should have seen Fletcher during that time.
While he was seen when he shouldn't have been, he often wasn’t seen when he should have been.
When the Comair flight crashed at Bluegrass Field, the governor should have been on the spot giving a speech the next day putting the tragedy in perspective--even if he had to fly back from Europe, where he was in economic negotiations, to do it. Instead, little was seen of him.
It has been reported that Fletcher has admitted his political shortcomings. That being so, he should have listened to those for whom political strategy was a strong suit. Instead, he not only did not seek good advice, but spurned it when it was given.
As the Governor, Fletcher was the de facto as well as the de jure head of his party. But the isolation Fletcher imposed upon himself also resulted in a failure to form any meaningful political network to further his own party’s interests--or to help him get reelected. A Governor cannot succeed at leading the state if he can’t even lead his own party. Time and again, he ceded leadership to others. The relationships with those he needed to govern suffered, not only from his penchant for not listening, but through sheer neglect.
There were members of the administration who tried to establish ties to those who should have been allies, but this is not the job of staff. It is the Governor’s job.
Leadership involves vision and determination. Fletcher has always suffered from a lack of both. When he first began exploring the idea of running for governor, he was asked by a number of those close to him, "Why do you want to be governor?" No one ever got a very good answer.
Fletcher’s loss at the polls is an indication that the voters never knew the answer to that question either. Because of this conservative voters were left with a sorry choice: the leader of an administration that was adrift, and an opponent who would turn the ship of state in the wrong direction. Faced with such a pitiful alternative, many just stayed home.
Bill Bennett once told the story of what happened when he took control of the U. S. Dept. of Education under Reagan: "I was up on the top floor turning the steering wheel and nothing was happening," he said. Then I went down to the next floor and discovered that it wasn't connected to anything." Someday someone will tell a similar story of the Fletcher administration, only it will be about someone who went up to the top floor, and found that no one was steering at all.
