Winners and Losers

Week 1 of the 2019 General Assembly is officially in the books. It’s time to examine who saw their stars rise and fall. After polling the team at ITC, we see it this way.

Winners:

• Congressman James Comer – Despite not even being in town, Comer stole the Frankfort show this week. Will he? Won’t he? No one is sure. But the possibility of a gubernatorial candidacy is titillating, that is for sure.

• Senator Morgan McGarvey – When you lead a caucus of single digits, what do you do to gain attention? Delivering a self-deprecating and witty speech at the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce’s annual dinner seems to be successful. McGarvey kept it light-hearted and proved that politics does not have to be mean-spirited.

• Senator Max Wise – Finding a topic that nearly everyone can agree upon is no simple task. Wise has done that with filing and promoting his school safety improvement bill.

• Representative Charles Booker – In a day of festivities, no one was happier to be a new member of the General Assembly than Booker, and it showed. We have a feeling he has a personality that will quickly make him friends on both sides of the aisle.

Losers:

• Governor Matt Bevin – In four days he restricted access to the Capitol, offended the Frankfort press corps, called members of legislative leadership liars, and gave a 40 minute speech that put 1500 people to asleep. The man accomplishes a lot, to accomplish so little.

• Representative Rocky Adkins – Rocky’s rendition of kumbaya this week, praising every Republican with the exception of Bevin, is an interesting strategy. We understand that he is trying to woo voters, but does that really woo Democratic primary voters?

• Senator Dan Seum – “Misdemeanor Malano” may have stepped into a legal hornet’s nest when he declared that he had smoked the devil’s lettuce on occasion, while promoting a bill for which his son lobbies. Will Dan get reacquainted with some of his former colleagues who now serve on the Legislative Ethics Commission?