TIME FOR A CHANGE IN OLDHAM COUNTY GOP LEADERSHIP

Several weeks ago the Oldham County Republican Party had to select a nominee to replace former County Attorney John Fendley on the November 2010 ballot. John Fendley had defeated fellow Republican candidate Galen Clark by 199 votes in the May primary but subsequently was killed in a farm accident.

The chairperson of the Republican Party, Anne Gernstein, stated that the process for the selection would be similar to a corporate hire in the private sector. Thus, she advised that anyone interested in filling the position should submit a resume to her and each person would be considered by the executive committee of the party. Additionally, Gernstein personally asked John Carter to submit a resume. To my knowledge she did not ask anyone else to submit a resume. She did this despite the fact that he had never run for the position of County Attorney previously while Galen Clark had sought the nomination of the party on two previous occasions. In a sound bite that is on this site you can hear Gernstein state that she could never vote for Galen Clark. It is obvious to me that she had already determined who she wanted to be the person to replace John Fendley. She also stated to me that she had received a call from the widow of Fendley regarding the position. I believe that Anne Gernstein supplanted the will of the Republican voters of Oldham County and decided that she was better qualified to decide who should be the next Republican nominee for county attorney. That simply is not her job.

Meanwhile, Oldham County Judge Duane Murner had selected Courtney Baxter to complete the unexpired term of Fendley. At the time Murner announced the selection before the fiscal court he stated that he had selected Baxter in order to keep politics out of the process to replace Fendley on the ballot. Thus, people were led to believe that Baxter would not be a candidate for the position on the November ballot. However, Baxter did submit her resume to the GOP for consideration for the position. It is known that Gernstein was upset that Murner had not contacted her regarding his selection to complete Fendley’s unexpired term. On the other side of the coin, according to Gernstein, Murner was upset with her for not contacting him regarding the selection of the person to fill the position on the November ballot. This was evidenced by Murner’s obvious disdain for the selection process. He expressed his displeasure to the local media and stated that he would have nothing more to do with the Oldham County GOP. I doubt that he would have been happy with any process that did not lead to the selection of Courtney Baxter to fill the position on the November ballot, but that is just my opinion.

The fact is that the executive committee did not take the time to interview any of the candidates. Gernstein has stated that there was not enough time to conduct interviews of all of the candidates. There were four applicants for the position. I cannot believe that four hours could not have been given for the purpose of interviewing the applicants. If you aren’t interested in giving that much time to do a task, then don’t accept the challenge. Personally, I believe that Gernstein already had her mind made up and that she did not believe an interview with each applicant was necessary to fulfill her mission.

In Gernstein’s role as the chairperson of the GOP she is supposed to remain neutral in primary elections. There have been instances in the past when she did not do that. She has been partial to certain candidates. She was particularly partial to Duane Murner when he was running for County Judge in 2006. Now he is not happy with her methodology. My, how the worm turns! This site will show in the coming days and weeks that Gernstein used her position and the office of chairperson to vilify many of the candidates in Oldham County. This has brought about divisiveness with in the party. The county does not appear to be united at the present time. There is no doubt that Anne Gernstein has helped many people within the Oldham County republican party but the time has come for her to be replaced if the party is to become unified and continue to be successful. I believe that the people of Oldham County have lost trust in her judgment.

I believe that the Republican Party would have easily captured the position of County Attorney had John Fendley lived or had the selection process for his replacement been conducted more fairly. However, at the present time I do not believe that the election is a “slam dunk” for the Republicans. Other races might also be affected. Moreover, I suspect that funding for the Republican Party will decrease drastically if Gernstein remains as the chairperson. If that were to happen the party could become dysfunctional and serve no positive purpose. The Democrats in the county must be waiting anxiously to see what the outcome of this crisis is.