By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 4, 2007; A05

CADIZ, Ky. -- Republicans are making Steve Beshear's life look easy.

Beshear, a Democrat, is expected to sail past the GOP incumbent into the Kentucky governor's mansion Tuesday, and Republicans in the Bluegrass State are already concerned about next year, when the White House is in play and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) faces reelection.

No wonder Beshear bounded into the Cadiz Restaurant on Main Street last week, all smiles and confidence, his tie knotted tightly and his penny loafers gleaming. A new statewide poll showed him with a 23 percentage-point lead over Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R), an ordained minister whose ethical challenges have merged in voters' minds with frustration over Republican leadership in Washington.

Beshear joked to an equally upbeat crowd that Fletcher is now called "the great unifier": unifying Democrats, Republicans and independents who want to throw him out.

Four years ago, when Fletcher became the state's first GOP governor in three decades, the mood in Kentucky's political parties was reversed. Kentucky appeared reliably Republican and the Democrats were scrambling to field winners. But recent results indicate fresh doubts.

Last year, progressive political newcomer John Yarmuth (D) took the northern Kentucky seat of five-term Rep. Anne M. Northup (R). In 2004, Daniel Mongiardo, an unknown state senator now running for lieutenant governor with Beshear, came surprisingly close to beating Sen. Jim Bunning (R), 76.

Most analysts think it unlikely that McConnell could lose. But Kentucky Democrats no longer think it out of the question. Beshear points to McConnell's ties to Bush, his firm support of the Iraq war and his leading role in an unpopular Congress.

"People in Kentucky are just as fed up with what's going on nationally as they are with what has gone on in the state," Beshear, 63, said. "President Bush has the lowest approval ratings he has ever had in the state, about 35 percent. In Kentucky, that's something."

Beshear added, "We've also got to find a good candidate."

A recent Lexington Herald-Leader poll suggested that a pair of Democrats, Rep. Ben Chandler and state Auditor Crit Luallen, are within five percentage points of McConnell in prospective matchups. But Chandler may wait until 2010 to seek Bunning's seat and Luallen has never run against an opponent as well-known and well-funded as McConnell, who has raised $9.1 million toward his reelection.

Political analyst Joe Gershtenson thinks McConnell is too politically skilled to be overtaken in 12 months, barring a dramatic and unsavory revelation. He sees few parallels with Republican John Thune's narrow defeat of then-Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) in 2004.

"McConnell has certainly throughout his career proven to be not only a phenomenal fundraiser but a very astute politician," said Gershtenson, director of Eastern Kentucky University's Center for Kentucky History and Politics. "He has proven himself very capable of triumphing repeatedly in different settings."

In this year's governor's race, Beshear's own search for a suitable Democratic contestant to face Fletcher led him back to himself. After losing a 1987 race for governor and a 1996 Senate race to McConnell, Beshear swears he had given up dreams of winning.

But when several prominent Democrats opted out, he opted in -- and soon won the May primary.

Republicans gave him a gift when Fletcher walloped Northup, who, after her defeat in 2006, ran in the GOP primary for governor. For Beshear, who presented a sobersided image of respectability and responsibility, Fletcher and his ethical problems offered a more generous target than Northup would have.

Although Fletcher campaigned in 2003 on a promise to end "good ol' boy politics" in the governor's mansion, he soon placed loyalists in state jobs meant to be based on merit. A grand jury called it an "illegal plan" and said "those who got in the way of the plan were fired or moved."

Fletcher declined to testify, invoking his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

When Fletcher and 14 aides were indicted, he pardoned the aides and made a deal with the Democratic attorney general, who dropped the charges against him in return for a signed admission that "the evidence strongly indicates wrongdoing by this administration." Fletcher signed but later dismissed the case as a "witch hunt."

The events gave a platform to Beshear. Just minutes into his talk in Cadiz, he said "honesty and integrity" are values that have been absent from the capital during Fletcher's four years in office. He spoke of the importance of "being responsible and accountable for ourselves."

"These are the kind of values that I grew up with, that you grew up with and that we're going to put back in the governor's mansion on November 6," Beshear said to a smattering of "amens."

Beyond a description of Fletcher's health-care policies as "immoral" and a catchall promise to bring economic progress to western Kentucky, Beshear's only foray into policy was a pledge to improve the "dismal job" he said the state and federal governments are doing for war veterans.

Fletcher, too, says "this race is about values." He points to casino gambling, which he opposes, as well as a list of social issues. He says Beshear cannot be trusted on what the governor calls "the four Gs: God, guns, gynecology and gay rights."

By gynecology, he means abortion rights.

Beshear, for his part, is counseling his supporters to stay strong.

"It's time to stop these people," he told the Cadiz audience, "from saying you cannot be a person of faith and be a Democrat."

Afterward, Beshear said he believes Democrats nationwide have often put too much emphasis on policy pronouncements and not enough on polishing their personal appeal to voters. Too much about issues, he said, and too little "about who they are and their values."