Commonwealth of Kentucky
Governor's Office
MEDIA ADVISORY

Media Contact: Nicole Burton
502-564-2611
[email protected]

Gov. Bevin to Hold Community Forum
in Woodford County

FRANKFORT, Ky. (May 20, 2019) – Gov. Matt Bevin will visit Versailles on Tuesday for a community dialogue about economic development and other key issues and initiatives impacting the Commonwealth.

This event is open to the public.

Who:

Governor Matt Bevin

What:

Community Forum

When:

Tuesday, May 21, 2019
2:30 p.m. EDT

Where:

KCTCS Systems Office
Room 102
300 North Main Street
Versailles, Kentucky

Great! I want to tell him in person just how WONDERFUL a job he is doing

I don't think Gov. Bevin needs a piece of my mind. He seems to be doing just fine with the one he has. I may go to Versailles on Tuesday to express my appreciation for his hard work and his attempts to fix the problems that we have here in Ky. I would really like to hear the complaints that members here have with Gov. Bevin and what they suggest he do differently.

I voted for Ralph

I didn't get to go vote but hoping Bevin wins.
I doubt he will though. Everyone hates him.

Why would I vote against Bevin in the primary and support a candidate clearly breaking the 11th commandment?

Any idea on results?

Go Bevin!

Only place I could find results...
Ballotpedia.org

Bevin won the primary.  But Goforth put up a better fight than anticipated.  He received around 39% of the votes.

That may spell trouble for Bevin among his base.

There are a lot of republicans/conservatives that are not pleased with Bevin on some items.  Some personal and some political

If Beshear wins that is the only chance for Bevin to win since Beshear might be seen as too liberal for this state

But a lot of people I know that voted for Bevin in the last election will sit this one out.  They won’t vote for a democrat but will not
Vote for Bevin either.   Especially in Eastern KY.

But we will see

Almost 130,000 more Democrat voters came out than Republican voters. Worrisome

I think most of it were people voting for "anyone but Bevin"
I have several friends in the teaching field and just hate his guts. What would typically be reasonable people were just turned off by some of his comments about kids and school and the whole retirement debacle.
Ive not really found much he said that I disagreed with but I can see how he comes off as rude/snobbish.

He often has poor delivery of his message.   He will have a good plan to do something positive but screws up the delivery causing a bunch of people to hate him for it.  Hopefully he gets a new communications director that can fix this.

In one town hall he explained the pension problem very clearly.  Going back 30 years ago there were 30 state employees working for every retiree.  Then it dropped to 20 workers, then it dropped to 10, then 5, and now it is less than one state employee feeding the system for 1 retiree.  This problem was made worse by the state agencies deciding it was a cost savings measure to hire contractors instead of employees.  Every state employee they replaced with a contractor just increased the magnitude of the problem.  State agencies are still farming out more work to contractors and eliminating state employees.  The pension system will never recover from this.  It will have to be limited to the existing people and will either require them to take less of a pension or tax payers are going to get hit footing the bill for all of the shortfalls.

How many of the people that voted for Goforth in this primary will vote for Beshear in November? Not many or none. How many Democrats will find Beshear "too liberal for this state"? Many of them. Rocky Adkins got a lot of votes. Beshear may not be able to convince many of those people to vote for him. Sit it out? Hell more than half of the registered voters will sit it out, they always do.

Crazy how folks hate Bevin, but are going to vote for Andy?  His dad was a big part of the problem so you are going to vote him in?

Also interesting that Henry won so big and the Media doesn't mention anything about her husband being in hot water over the years.

Henry

Henry 2

I met Steve at a City Council meeting years ago where he told the MW City that if they didn't give him access to land via the Mt Washington Business park he would get it without their permission.    Park went on the other side of Bardstown road many years later.  He is a real piece of work.

As I said most who dislike Bevin will not vote for Beshear.  But they may not vote for Bevin either.  A lot will sit out.

For Bevin, Beshear getting the nomination will probably help him in the election since Beshear is liberal.  If Rocky Adkins had gotten the nomination I think Bevin would have had an uphill battle.

But Bevin's best bet was to run against Beshear.  So he has a good chance of being reelected if enough voters do not want Beshear.   But it does not change the fact that a lot of Kentuckians to include
conservatives and republicans are not happy with Bevin for various reasons.

I know a far amount of people who will not vote for Beshear but also will not be voting for Bevin either this time around.  It may come down to who is disliked the most in the election.

Bevin only received about 51% of the republican votes in the primary which is considered very low for an incumbent Governor.   He should have been polling in the 60s or 70s among his base.

So it will be interesting in this year's election.

It will be interesting but don't ever believe that Bevin's BASE is the Republican party. Just like Trump, many of the party members hate him, because he has upset their fun house. His BASE is the rock-ribbed conservatives/tea party. It seems that there are too many people listening to the media and drinking the Democrats cool aid. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Bevin is a shoe-in, but I think that he is the obvious front runner at the moment. There is no way to fix the problems that we have in Ky. and not step on some toes. I hear a lot of people telling me they won't vote in November. So what, those same people haven't voted in any election in the last 20 years.

A democratic governor will issue in gun control in our state.

We CANNOT let that happen.

Governor's don't make laws. If they did, we would have had constitutional carry 3 years ago and then we would lose it as soon as the next Democrat was elected to that office. As long as we have the Republicans in power in the General Assembly our gun rights are relatively safe from any further erosion. If we can keep all three branches of government in Republican hands we can make a lot of positive changes.

It'll be a very interesting November for sure.

Personally I think Bevin faces an uphill battle against Beshear with the amount of hate he generates among the KEA crowd. However they did threaten to "remember in November" and it got them nothing last election. So maybe they're paper tigers. Hard to say.

I'm equally if not more concerned to win the AGs office. Sick of Beshear not defending our laws.

The KEA crowd has always hated Republicans and were never going to vote for Bevin anyway.  They are more vocal now but I don't know that it helps them.  Most parents were annoyed that the schools were shutting down with no notice, leaving them scrambling to find someone to watch their kids.

Amen

Excellent point. Plus they got nothing last November...in fact "we" gained a seat.

B, b, b, but the Courier-Journal and Lexington Herald said he is going to lose.

KEA will not determine whether he gets re-elected or not.  No one thing will.   They are loud but a small minority.

But there is a chance he will be beaten if a lot smaller groups choose to not to vote for him or vote for Beshear that may have supported Bevin in the past.

I can tell one group that Bevin will probably lose votes out of is the Justice Cabinet.   That Cabinet is probably the most conservative Cabinet in state government
and yet Bevin put a liberal Democrat in charge of it who brought in more liberal staff at the Cabinet level.

They are hated by the line staff and the various Departments in the cabinet.   The Cabinet has been firing Republicans and replacing many with Democrats in key positions.

There are several thousand employees in this cabinet and if they and their families either sit out the election or vote for Beshear (Who hates Tilley by the way even though he is a fellow Dem)
it could cost Bevin a lot of votes.  Will it be enough to cost him the election.   Who knows.

But even though Bevin himself may be conservative a lot of his cabinet choices are not and are actually pretty liberal.

That is a question Bevin supporters should be asking him.   Why are you putting Democrats (liberal ones to boot) in key positions in your Cabinets?

hehe I like the guy, too.   I mean, as far as I know about him.

So, you are saying if Bevin had not hired these Dems. in the first place or he fired them now, then they might vote for him. Come on, these people were never going to vote for Bevin and never have voted for Bevin. How can they now be the reason he can't get reelected?

This is concerning to hear, if true. Can you provide backup?

Most of them did vote for him. A lot of them actually agree with him on most issues but they hate his justice secretary and his staff

This is personal now for many of them.  In the end this has nothing to do with politics.  they will either not vote for Bevin or vote for beshear just to get rid of Tilley.

If he did fire Tilley and replace him with a conservative secretary he might get some of their votes back. But at this stage it might be too late

Tilley is a politician and is an inmate advocate.

I can for the justice cabinet.

Both commissioners of corrections fired were Republicans.  Director of emergency management in corrections was a republican and a big Bevin supporter and he was fired.  The P&P director was a republican and was fired.  And the director of operations for corrections was a republican and a huge gun rights advocate. A retired colonel from the army.  He was fired.  All have been replaced by Tilleys people.

When you interview for a non merit job in state government Bevins administration does not ask what political affiliation you are with and so a lot of democrats are getting hired.  Do you think when the democrats were in power they did the same?  They mostly hired people of their party

Tilley is a liberal democrat and brought most of his liberal staff with him.  And some who are Republicans converted over just days before the election in 15

I saw in the Courier Journal recently that the L. Gov had one of her staff fired? Who is doing that kind of thing? Isn't an executive position responsible for their own staff?

Sounds like we ahve a lot of snakes in the grass that need to be flushed out.

Not fully understanding your question?   Do you mean Bevin should be better vetting his staff that he hires?  Or that you agree with him firing Republicans?

I think Bevin should be vetting his staff better and having closer oversight of his cabinet secretaries to ensure they are putting conservative people into
key positions.   For non-merit positions his staff should be checking their political leanings.  If he has not figured it out yet we are in a struggle with the left wing
in this country and he is not helping the cause by putting them in executive positions in government.  Now I do not mean he should fire all Democrats in non-merit positions since
that is not always necessary as you get deeper down into the lesser positions.  For instance, Wardens at prisons should be appointed for their competence and not political leanings.   Thus far
all administrations, including democrats, have not introduced politics into the appointing of Wardens.  But for Key staff at the Cabinet level that set policy and are suppose to reflect the Governors political leanings they should be vetted better.

I believe this is where his business background hurts him.  Most businesses do not check the political background of prospective candidates since it is not really necessary.
He has taken this practice into hiring key executive staff for his administration.   Probably because his position is that he is trying to hire the "best and brightest".  But in a political struggle
this is not usually the best practice.   You hire people that are good candidates but with the political leanings that match your positions and values.

In the end I believe this is why there are a lot more liberals in his administration due this practice.   Which is hurting him more than he realizes.

Specifically, one of her staff had been fired, but not by her. She was asking for prayer against "dark forces" out to get her. How does she not have authority over her own staff?

She may have but all unelected, non-merit employees that work in the Executive Branch serve at the pleasure of the Governor. I suspect that this was caused by someone in personnel or someone on the staff in the Governor's Office. I also suspect that it will just go away in a few days. The employee involved is still at work and didn't miss a minute of time at work nor a single dollar of pay. News media like to create controversy even when none exists.