Ive been telling you

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I’ve been telling you since early January about the <$NoAd$>House special election coming up on February 17th to elect a new member of Congress from Kentucky’s 6th District. The race pits former Attorney General Ben Chandler (D) against state Rep. Alice Forgy Kerr (R).

The Chandler campaign has been trying to frame this as a potential bellwether election. And it looks like it’s turning out that way.

Stu Rothernberg had this to say on Monday in Roll Call

Unless voters in Kentucky’s 6th district suddenly have a change of heart, the Republicans are headed for a rocky Feb. 17 special election in the Lexington-area House district. Former two-term state Attorney General Ben Chandler (D), not state Rep. Alice Forgy Kerr (R), has the advantage in the final days before the election.

But worse than the loss of a single House seat, a Republican defeat would suggest some problems for President Bush and his party.

This isn’t exactly what Republicans expected to happen when the seat became open, following Republican Ernie Fletcher’s election as governor in November.

GOP strategists planned to make the special election a referendum on a popular president and a contrast of ideologies in a conservative district. That way, they figured, they could elect Kerr to Congress even though the district has a Democratic registration advantage and is politically competitive.

If Chandler picks up that seat next Tuesday it’ll be a major headache for the president. Every race has local dynamics — and the relative qualities of the two candidates play an important role in an election for an open seat. But, in the current climate, a defeat for the president’s candidate — and that’s what she is — will be viewed as a sign of his broader political weakness — perhaps not unlike Harris Wofford’s bellwether Senate victory over Dick Thornburgh in 1991 signalled the cracks in the president’s father’s air of invulnerability.

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