MANY REPUBLICANS ANGRY OVER GOP SELECTION PROCESS FOR COUNTY ATTORNEY NOMINEE

Recently the Oldham County GOP selected a nominee to replace John Fendley on the November 2010 ballot as the GOP candidate for Oldham County Attorney. I have received many calls from people questioning the process. Many people assumed that Galen Clark would be selected as the nominee since he had run for the nomination on two occasions and narrowly lost to incumbent John Fendley in the May 2010 primary. However, this was not the case. Attorney John Carter was selected by the GOP Executive Committee to be the nominee. To my knowledge none of the candidates were interviewed by the committee. The chairperson said that time did not permit that. I do not agree with that as there were only four candidates. I guess there is no need to interview if your mind is already made up.

First, let me make it clear that there are no rules that would dictate that Galen Clark should have been selected as the nominee. However, he did run for the nomination and barely lost to John Fendley. It is a fact that certain members of the Fendley family did not want Galen Clark to be the replacement on the GOP ticket for John Fendley. One might believe that the Republican Party owed something to John Fendley. The fact of the matter is, the Republican Party did not owe John Fendley anything. John Fendley was a Democrat until just before the 2006 elections. I personally heard John Fendley state to the Republican Party at a party meeting that he only switched to the Republican Party in order to be elected. At least he was honest. However, he was not a long-time Republican – he was an opportunist.

For the record, I supported Galen Clark in the May 2010 primary. However, after he lost, and the last time that I spoke with John Fendley, I told him that I would be supporting him in the November election and I told him that he was welcome to put a sign in my yard. I regret that I will not be able to do that because John Fendley earned the nomination. However, his family did not earn the nomination. Therefore, I thought that the nomination should have gone to Galen Clark.

Frankly, I believe that the Republican Party Executive Committee treated Galen Clark unfairly. If there was something in Galen Clark’s past that should have kept him from receiving the nomination, the information should have been made public. Further, Clark should have been given the opportunity to present his side of the story. Instead of Clark being given that opportunity the party sought John Carter to apply for the nomination. It is my understanding that there were four candidates, including Clark and Carter. One of the other candidates was Courtney Baxter whom current County Judge Executive Duane Murner had chosen to serve the remainder of the unexpired term of Fendley. That selection is a whole different story. Supposedly, Murner selected her instead of Clark or Stuart Ulferts, the democratic nominee, in order to keep politics out of the selection. It appears that he was trying to give Baxter a political advantage.

As stated before, the executive committee was not bound to select Clark, however to not select him was a slap in the face of almost fifty percent of the Republican voters who voted in the primary election in May. In essence, a nine member executive committee overruled half of the Republican voters of Oldham County. That showed a total lack of gratitude. Many Republicans in Oldham County have a right to be angry and, if what I am hearing is indicative of their anger, they are very angry.

If anyone on the executive committee knew something about Galen Clark that was so bad that he should not serve as County Attorney, and did not share it with the public before the primary election, that person would have been doing a disservice to all of the people in Oldham County, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.

Politically speaking, the Republican Party had an opportunity to secure the office for many years to come due to Clark’s age. Instead the committee chose a candidate who will soon be sixty-six years old and unlikely to want to serve many years. Or could it have been that they wanted a candidate who would only serve only one term? That would give John Fendley’s son, Daniel, an opportunity to move to Oldham County and be qualified to run in 2014 without having to face an incumbent. With the way this selection was made anything is possible.