Opinion: Matt Bevin lost the Kentucky governor's race because he's a jerk. Good riddance!

Joseph Gerth | Courier Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption Kentucky governor race 2019: Gov. Matt Bevin refuses to concede speech Matt Bevin was quick to congratulate republican victories and stated he will not concede while demanding a recount.

I’m not going to do an old soft shoe over the rotting remains of Gov. Matt Bevin’s political career on the morning after it came to a crashing end at the hands of Attorney General and now Gov.-elect Andy Beshear.

Not this morning.

There will be plenty of time to dance on the grave of the nastiest man ever to hold the governor’s office in Kentucky — one who lied because he could even when there was incontrovertible evidence he was doing so, one who made enemies out of political friends, one who made hated rivals out of political foes, and made Democratic voters out of staunch Republicans.

But on the morning after Matt Bevin’s political career in Kentucky came to a crushing end with what appears to be a 5,200-vote loss to the scion of the family he belittled, investigated and in the nastiest of all moves removed the family matriarch’s name from a building on the state Capitol campus, let’s hope politicians are learning.

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Let’s make one thing crystal clear:

Matt Bevin didn’t lose because his policies are out of step with Kentucky voters. He didn’t lose because in his four years, he didn’t govern as he promised when elected in 2015. He didn’t lose because of scandal.

Matt Bevin lost because he is a jerk.

Had he treated people with a modicum of respect over the last four years, he would have cruised to a 20-point victory in a state that has turned deep red over the last 30 years.

The GOP slashed its way through the constitutional offices on Tuesday night winning four of the other five races by more than 200,000 votes each and improbably winning the fifth race (for secretary of state) with a late surge.

Voters in Kentucky couldn’t deal with the toxicity that was the Matt Bevin administration.

He lost two of the three counties in Northern Kentucky — a hotbed of tea party activism and a Republican stronghold for a generation. He ceded Warren County — which gave us U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and has consistently been one of the most dependable Republican counties in the state.

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All of those losses are likely because of the way he treated Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton, also of Bowling Green, who he dumped from his reelection ticket and insulted by firing all but one member of her office staff.

He rolled up stunning losses — trailing by 35,000 votes in Lexington and a staggering 95,000 votes in Louisville.

Those losses came in the state’s two largest cities, where voters saw Bevin’s antics on the evening news each night and in The Courier Journal or Lexington Herald-Leader each morning.

And it’s not that the media was somehow biased against Bevin. It’s that the consumers of the news in those cities saw through Bevin’s glad-handing, selfie-taking, Bible-thumping veneer and saw him for what he was.

They saw him attack the ministers who dared to question his “plan” to save the West End from a spate of murders by suggesting that all we had to do was pray — as if the people in those communities don’t already have a shiny patina on the knees of their trousers.

They watched as he fumed when reporters would ask him legitimate questions about the purchase of a home from a political supporter at a fraction of its true worth, and when he almost shook with anger when forced to explain the ridiculously high salary he was paying his old Army buddy to run the state’s computer network.

They saw the way he treated teachers, scared for their future, just because they opposed his plans for their pension funds that they feared would jeopardize their retirements.

And they voted against him. Because he’s a jerk.

Hopefully the politicians in Kentucky and beyond see Bevin’s apparent loss for what it is; the public’s reaction to someone who treats the people of this state with disrespect.

I think they will. I hope they will.

One can’t imagine state Treasurer Alison Ball or Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles or state Auditor Mike Harmon, or Beshear and Lt. Gov.-elect Jacqueline Coleman treating people like Bevin did.

You can’t imagine Attorney General-elect Daniel Cameron or Secretary of State-elect Mike Adams doing it either.

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It’s time for Kentucky to turn its back on the Bevin era and move forward with these Republican and Democratic leaders to a new era of civility. The Kentucky General Assembly needs to tell Bevin “No,” they won’t save his sorry carcass using some baseless claim of voter irregularities.

Sorry. I didn't mean to dance on the man's political grave. There's plenty of time for that over the next five weeks, at which time Beshear will take office.

But it's time for Matt Bevin to go away.

Good riddance!

Joseph Gerth can be reached at 502-582-4702 or by email at jgerth@courierjournal.com. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/josephg.