In a recent article, John Cheves attempts to analyze the Fletcher campaign's actions in the closing days of the gubernatorial campaign to play what Cheves calls "the gay card." But Cheves missed the real story--a story in which he himself was a player.
The Fletcher campaign conducted a calling blitz in the waning days of the campaign informing voters of what C-FAIR, a gay rights organization, said in its endorsement of him that Steve Beshear would do once he took office. The calls featured the voice of Pat Boone. When word of the calls got out, Kentucky's liberal press corps, knowing how such information might be received by Kentucky's largely conservative voters, went into full panic mode.
It was the first recorded instance of anyone actually being terror-stricken by Pat Boone.
When it endorsed Beshear, C-FAIR claimed that he would support gay adoption, gay rights laws, and the
recognition of same-sex relationships. The organization also said
Beshear would reinstitute gay rights provisions for executive branch
employment that would place "sexual orientation" on the same level as
race, gender, and religion in state hiring procedures.
Now these positions are pretty common fare for gay rights groups, but it would have been the first time a candidate for Kentucky governor supported them, and would be unusual positions for a gubernatorial candidate to take in a state that just 3 years ago passed the Marriage Amendment by a record margin. You would have thought the claim by C-FAIR would be big news.
Instead, the media was almost completely silent.
But when the Fletcher campaign began its calling campaign, all of a sudden reporters swung into action, one describing the calls as "gay-bashing," despite the fact that he hadn't even heard the calls--and despite the fact that the calls said little more than what C-FAIR was saying on its own website. In fact, another series of calls, which did not come from the Fletcher campaign, but from an anonymous entity reporters dubbed the "robo caller", directed recipients directly to the C-FAIR website.
What was the media so upset about? And why, when they refused to report what C-FAIR had said on its website in the first place, did it get upset when others did little more than point it out themselves? Why was it not a story when C-FAIR said it and a scandal when Fletcher said it? Would the Fletcher campaign (or, for that matter, the robo caller) have bothered if the media had been doing its job in the first place and reporting the news?
Where were John Cheves and his colleagues when C-FAIR made the initial claims? Under normal circumstances, when reporters smell something potentially embarrassing to a candidate, they pounce. Why didn't they in this case?
The Beshear campaign was obviously trying to keep a low profile about the C-FAIR endorsement. It was mysteriously absent from the Beshear campaign's list of endorsements on its web page. And when Bill Bartleman of the Paducah Sun finally walked through the veritable picket line of reporters who were refusing to report the original story, he asked Beshear's spokesperson Vicki Glass specifically about C-FAIR's claims.
The representative of the candidate who said in his TV commercials, "One thing I promise you, you'll always know where I stand" responded: "No further comment." Mark it down as the first broken promise of the Beshear administration--and he hadn't even been elected yet.
Had a group as far to the right at C-FAIR is to the left endorsed Fletcher, would the media have waited until the Democrat's campaign pointed it out so say anything about it? And would it then have launched off on its own campaign to discredit the Democratic candidate for bringing it up?
Not likely.
Had Fletcher spoken to a militia group, for example, ten bucks says the Herald-Leader and the rest of the state media would have been blaring it from the housetops as soon as it could get its hands on the story. But when a story would embarrass the more liberal candidate, the media's hands are good for little else than sitting on.
One of the things Cheves and other pro-Beshear reporters seemed to be so upset about was that the robo-caller did not identify himself. But who is worse? A person who refuses to identify himself but
is willing to tell you the truth? Or a person who is willing to identify himself but refuses
to tell you the truth--despite the fact that that's his job?
Cheves is right about one thing: the calls did little to help Fletcher, but that was largely due to the fact that he did little on social issues during his entire administration, and only began taking a stand when he saw the buzzards circling.
Finally, Cheves and his colleagues were equally disinterested in perhaps the most worrisome revelation of all. Yes, the Fletcher campaign hired Pat Boone to do a recorded phone message. But when asked about the calls, Beshear responded that Boone should stick to singing. And then, ominously, he added, "I still enjoy listening to his
music."
If that's not enough to strike fear into the hearts of Kentuckians, I don't know what is.
