Kentucky just held their primary election for Governor. The results (see here) mean currently indicted Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher will face off against Democrat Steve Beshear in November's general election. Democrat Beshear has been a reformer, pushing for a referendum reforming the Kentucky Judicial System and working as a consumer advocate. By contrast, Ernie Fletcher is currently indicted on charges of conspiracy, official misconduct and political discrimination. And yet Republicans elected Fletcher in the primary with just over 50% of the vote. Once again, the Republican Party shows itself to be accepting of corruption.

I have written about Fletcher before. Last year he ranked as the 5th least popular governor in the nation (Republican governors of Ohio and Missouri, also heavily involved in corruption, were the two LEAST popular governors in America). Fletcher's administration is suspected of violating the state's merit system laws and using politics as the basis for hiring or firing government employees. In essence, they are going back to the time of the so-called “spoils system” where government firing and hiring was a rewards system for political allies. This was considered unacceptable more than 100 years ago and was ended on the Federal level by the Civil Service Act of 1883 which made it illegal to fill various federal offices by the spoils system. Kentucky also has a “Merit Law” that outlaws the corrupt spoils system. Yet Repub Gov. Fletcher wants to go back to and older time, where corruption was accepted as normal. Nine current or former members of Fletcher's administration have been indicted on a series of misdemeanor charges alleging violations of the Merit System personnel law. And Republicans in Kentucky agree with him about good old fashioned corruption. And almost universally this is seen as guarnateeing a big win for Steve Beshear come November.

It really is a sad, sad time for the Republican Party. I don't revel in their collapse into crime and corruption. Rather I wish we once again had two viable, reasonable parties rather than see the Republican party become the party of extremism, corruption and fiscal irresponsibility. I recently wrote an article on how Bush will be the death of the Republican Party (one of our most read articles in recent months). That article wasn't strictly accurate, upon reflection. Bush and corrupt Republicans like Doolittle, DeLay, Frist, the Blunts of Missouri, a whole huge list of others...and Ernie Fletcher of Kentucky are all contributing to the death of the Republican Party. Bush couldn't do it alone. But with the likes of the DeLay, Frist, Blunt and Fletcher, the Republican Party is in severe decline.