I noticed something odd when I read this AP story
about Kentucky Governor Paul Patton. The Guv may have had his hand in
the cookie jar, and a few other places as well. But as I said, there
was something odd about the story; something missing.

There was no party affiliation mentioned.

I did a little more digging and finally turned up this UPI story.
UPI begins their piece with the words "Democratic Kentucky Gov. Paul
Patton has formally denied..."; nothing left to guess here! But this
UPI piece seems to be a rarity. Several local news outlets (WTVQ Lexington, Courier-Journal, Louisville, WAVE, Louisville) also fail to mention the Governor's party; something that would be automatic were he a Republican.

Using Google's news search, I looked up the terms "Republican governor"
and "Democratic governor". The former turned up 504 stories while the
latter only turned up 362 uses of the phrase. While this isn't as
dramatic a difference as searches of the terms "Arch-conservative"
versus "Arch-liberal" would be, it is still interesting. Reporters are
more inclined to identify GOP politicians by their party than they are
Democrats. Also, a quick glance at those stories that use the phrase
"Democratic governor" shows that in most cases the story was about
politics or elections; cases where one would expect to see party
affiliations mentioned.

(I've started this thread on FreeRepublic for discussion.)

It looks like Instapundit has the same href="http://www.instapundit.com/archives/008912.php#008912"
style="font-weight: bold;">nervous feeling about Dubuya that I do.



Why the nerves? Because someone in the White House is href="http://www.charleston.net/stories/041203/wor_12bushguns.shtml"
style="font-weight: bold;">toying with gun owners by suggesting that the President would support the continuation of Bill Clinton's soon-to-sunset Assault Weapon ban. (I just can't
bring myself to believe that this come from the top. It just style="font-style: italic;">has to be someone else's idea of
"strategery".) Will we be seeing another one-termer named "Bush"?



This "strategery" is a horrible idea. Gun owners put Bush over the top
in 2000. That's not my opinion, nor does it come from the NRA, nor from
any other group seeking to make some political hay. style="font-weight: bold;">Bill Clinton gives gun owners the
credit for Gore's defeat. And he's right. Gore lost his home state and
West Virginia largely because gun owners feared his anti-gun policies. style="font-style: italic;">Had he won either of those normally
Democrat states, "chads" would not be a part of the American political
lexicon. Hillary(!), the presumed '04 Democrat candidate, will
need to pick up only one of these states to win. If Bush pisses off
enough gun owners, they simply won't vote. If they stay home,
especially in states like Tennessee and West Virginia, he's toast.
He'll go from conquering hero to one-term loser as quickly as his
father did.



Dubya, it's time to dance with the one what brung ya.