Nursing a 21 year old grudge is sad and pathetic
By Scott Tibbs, January 29, 2019
When Jerry Bales passed away last week, the Herald-Times could not help but revisit the 1998 Republican primary that Bales lost. The H-T has never gotten over this race. From the editorial:
What galled the Republicans at the time was that Bales did what he believed was best for the people he represented, and those were citizens and not party leaders.This is nonsense. Clearly Bales did not represent the citizens of his district, or they would not have voted him out of office. You can whine all you want about "party leaders," but the fact is that it was Republican primary voters who fired Bales from his job as a state legislator, not the Republican Party.
Democrats are also bitter that Jeff Ellington is a state legislator, with one commenter complaining that district 62 was drawn for him. The district maps drawn in 2011 had zero to do with getting Jeff Ellington elected. If the maps were drawn for Ellington, they would not have placed him into an incumbent Republican's district. No one expected Matt Ubelhor to have to move for his job when the maps were drawn, and that Ellington would run for the seat and win a caucus.
Let's not forget that the only reason Peggy Welch was even able to run for District 60 is because Democrats challenged their own candidate and removed her from the ballot. The Herald-Times never once complained about that. It is terrible for Republican primary voters to choose someone other than the Herald-Times editorial board's preferred candidate, but it is perfectly OK to not even allow a candidate to run for the seat. The partisan hypocrisy is astonishing, but is perfectly normal for the Herald-Times.
The Herald-Times is still bitter about that primary 21 years ago. It is sad and pathetic that the editorial board is exploiting Bales' passing to whine about Republican voters' choice in a primary two decades ago. It is time to get over it and move on.
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