Please sign the petition below to remove the statue of Jefferson Davis currently in Kentucky’s Capitol Rotunda, and replace it with a tribute to Muhammad Ali, “the Louisville Lip” and “the Greatest of All Time.”
I just heard from the Ali family: It is the Champ’s belief that Islam prohibits three-dimensional representations of living Muslims. Accordingly, I have adjusted the petition to call for a two-dimensional representation of Ali (a portrait, picture or mural) in lieu of a statue.
UPDATE (Tuesday, December 2, 2014)
In this interview with WHAS-TV’s Joe Arnold, Governor Steve Beshear endorses the idea of honoring Muhammad Ali in the State Capitol (although he disagrees with removing Davis). Arnold explores the idea further on his weekly show, “The Powers that Be.”
Click here to check out WDRB-TV’s Lawrence Smith’s coverage of the story.
And here’s my op-ed in Ali’s hometown paper, the Louisville Courier-Journal.
UPDATE (Saturday, June 4, 2016)
In the wake of the 2015 Charlestown tragedy, in which a Confederate flag-waving murderer united the nation against racism, all of the most powerful Kentucky policymakers — U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, Governor Matt Bevin, Senate President Robert Stivers and House Speaker Greg Stumbo — called for the removal of the Davis statue from the Rotunda. Today, as we commemorate last night’s passing of Muhammad Ali, there is no better moment to replace the symbol of Kentucky’s worst era with a tribute to The Greatest of All Time.
UPDATE (Wednesday, June 8, 2016):
Great piece by Lawrence Smith of WDRB-TV in Louisville on the petition drive to replace Jefferson Davis’ statue in the Capitol Rotunda with a tribute to Muhammad Ali.
UPDATE (Thursday, June 9, 2016):
Excellent piece on the petition drive by Jack Brammer that was featured on the front page of the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Highlight of the article:
Miller said he has received a few “angry comments” on his call to honor Ali.
“One of them encouraged me to kill myself,” he said. “You can quote me that I have decided not to take their advice.”
UPDATE (Friday, June 10, 2016)
The petition drives continues to show the Big Mo(hammed): check out these stories from WKYU-FM public radio in Bowling Green and WKYT-TV, Channel 27 in Lexington:
UPDATE (Saturday, June 11, 2016):
Still not convinced? Check out this excerpt from today’s New York Times:
I am writing this while spending spring break with my family driving through North Carolina and Virginia visiting colleges with my sixteenyear-old daughter, Catherine. As we were driving from Lexington,Kentucky, to Charlotte, North Carolina, to begin our college search at Davidson, we began to discuss previous family spring break trips – Hilton Head, California, and skiing in Utah. I then asked my family what trip was before Utah and my family responded that I was still in politics before Utah and then reminded me that we seldom, if ever, went on spring break trips while I was a part of the political world.
That response is a perfect example of how my family discusses our family experiences: during politics and after politics. My children favor the after-politics period. A few months after my forced exit from public life, my son and I were heading home from the golf course and my son out-of-the-blue told me to not take it the wrong way, but he was glad I had lost my Supreme Court race. Although I wish that I had won the election, I, like my family, have loved my life after politics. I am probably still a recovering politician, but I think I may be in the final steps of recovery. In fact, I have traveled full circle.
I have known the founder of Recovering Politician since high school. When Jonathan Miller returned to Kentucky in the 1990s to run for State Treasurer, we had lunch together. I still remember our conversation. I had lost faith in the political system and I believed that it was generally a waste of time. I wrote Jonathan a small contribution and got my law partners to also write small contributions in support of Jonathan’s campaign. Jonathan had only Democratic opposition and this fact made it very easy to support my friend.
A few years later, I had become disenchanted with my law practice and in early 2000 I agreed to run Scott Crosbie’s 2002 Lexington, Kentucky, mayoral campaign. Although I had grown up around politics, I had never worked in a campaign full-time. Scott and I discussed that I may need to find some sort of campaign school or seminar to attend. It turned out that there was no need to find training because in April 2000, then-Congressman Ernie Fletcher asked me to run his 2000congressional campaign. Former Congressman Scotty Baesler had decided to try to take his seat back and I was thrust into one of the top-five targeted races by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the AFL-CIO. I was convinced that the Lord had opened this door to provide me the skills necessary toget Scott Crosbie elected Mayor in 2002. Congressman Fletcher went on to crush Baesler in the fall of 2000. I then returned to the law firm for a brief period and began to get ready for the Lexington mayoral campaign.
The 2002 mayoral election began in 2001 and for over eighteen months Scott and I experienced the highest highs and the lowest lows. We suffered at the hands of abiasednewspaper, with its seeminglydaily negative coverage of our campaign. We survived a three-way primary and then ultimately lost the general election by 1300 votes. The loss was one of the most difficult periods of my life. I was convinced that the Lord had brought Scott and me together to help change Lexington and I was extremely disappointed. After election night I had no idea what was next. I spent the next three weeks watching Season 1 episodes of “24” and watching multiple seasons of the Sopranos at all hours of the night.
By late 2002 Congressman Fletcher was running for Governor of Kentucky and I did not believe that I could participate in another campaign. I was extremely tired, and I spent much too much time away from my family. Instead, I became the district director of his congressional office. After Ernie’s victory in the fall of 2003, Governor Fletcher asked me to be General Counsel to the Governor. I was thrilled. I had grown up in the Democratic bastion of Frankfort, Kentucky, and was excited to be a part of changing the culture of Frankfort and our state. Ernie Fletcher is the most impressive and genuine person I ever had the privilege to meet in politics. He was smart and driven to make Kentucky more economically competitive. It was an honor to be his lawyer and the head lawyer for his administration.
The first year of the administration required a tremendous commitment of time. My family still reminds me of the 7 1/2 hour conference call while we were on vacation at Martha’s Vineyard in June of 2004. Our administration not only had to deal with the normal challenges of a first-year administration but also had to plan and defend running the government without a legislatively enacted budget. Ultimately, after my work schedule caused me to cancel a one-day family trip, I decided in early 2005 that I was ready to leave public service behind. I told Governor Fletcher that I would stay until the end of 2005.
A few months after that decision, Justice James Keller announced his retirement from the Kentucky Supreme Court. I gave the vacancy an initial passing thought but did not give it serious thought. However, that would soon change. Before oral argument at the Kentucky Supreme Court concerning the power of the Governor to run the executive branch without a budget, one of my law classmates who was representing State Treasurer Jonathan Miller in the litigation came up to me and said that I should pursue the appointment. He was a Democrat and indicated he would publicly support me. After prayer and discussions with my wife, I decided to inform Governor Fletcher of my interest. Governor Fletcher asked what had changed my mind about leaving public service. I responded that the Supreme Court position was a dream position and I decided it would be worth the sacrifices of public service.
Ultimately, I was appointed to the Kentucky Supreme Court. I loved my job. I loved the research and the writing and I believed that everything that had happened in my professional life had prepared me for the position. However, the dream would end in over seventeen months when I was defeated in an election to keep my position. What was most surprising about the defeat was that I did not enter into the same post-election mood that I suffered through when I was Scott Crosbie’s campaign manager. In fact, I got up the day after the election and I went to my chambers and worked on judicial opinions.
What was the difference between 2002 and 2006? Although I have miles to go, I believe that my faith had matured. By 2006, I understood that if God is sovereign on the day you were appointed to the Supreme Court he is also sovereign on the day you lost.
I returned to my old law firm in late 2006 and I am still with Ransdell & Roach PLLC. For the first time since I became a lawyer, I truly enjoy private practice. Since my forced early retirement from politics I have had little to do with politics and feel much like I did at my lunch meeting with Jonathan Miller in 1999. However, I must confess I stayed up most of the night during the election night coverage in November, 2010. I guess you are never fully recovered.
Thanks to all of our new readers — and especially our daily return viewers — for helping make this second week such an unexpected success.
Since we’ve got the “Big Mo” on our side, we’ve planned another exciting week ahead for you.
As per our long-standing (two-week) tradition, we will have three new recovering politicians to introduce to you. Wednesday’s will be a household name, at least in political circles: a former Governor and Senator whose name has twice shown up on short lists to be nominated as Vice President of his party. Friday will feature a party’s recent nominee for statewide office, who is also a bestselling author and one of the smartest policy minds of his generation.
And Monday, we feature a former state Supreme Court Justice who has been a longtime friend of the RP’s since they attended rival high schools in the 80s. That being said, he and the RP disagree on pretty much every major controversial policy issue of the day. The fact that they still have remained friends speaks volumes about our common humanity and the potential for civil discourse. We think you will enjoy hearing about his political and personal journey on Monday.
By popular demand, on Tuesday, RPTV will offer Fifteen Minutes of Fame with our own Contributing RP, Jeff Smith, who will help fill some of the blanks left by his powerful introductory piece, as well as answer some of the questions our readers have posed.
Of course, we will have a Friday Video Flashback, a new Friend of RP to introduce, and plenty of Weekly Web Gems to help you skim the best of the civil discourse that’s flowing through the Internet tubes.
We hope you have a relaxing weekend. Get ready for some more fun and fascination on Monday.
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 2:15 PM ET
In early 1995, one of my best friends, David Hale (now U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky) called me to see if I would help the campaign for Secretary of State of his law school classmate, John Y. Brown, III. I was certainly aware of Brown’s dad, the former chicken magnate and Governor, but my parents had opposed Brown Jr.’s last campaign, opting instead to support some guy named Steve Beshear.
Still, I was bored working as an associate for a big Washington law firm; David made a compelling case; and John, upon meeting, seemed like a nice, well-meaning, intelligent guy.
Somehow, as the only one in the room with a modicum of campaign experience, I was enlisted, pro bono, as the campaign’s media consultant. I wrote and directed a series of ads that, while extraordinarily amateurish, apparently didn’t hurt Brown too bad — he won both the primary and general elections by wide margins.
Most importantly, watch for the international television debut of my future running mate, John Y. Brown, IV, whose newfound mobility skills inspired the ad, and whose telegenic appearance cannot be underestimated for its vote-accruing effect:
By Stephanie Doctrow, RP Staff, on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET
The Politics of Wellness
Are our veterans and their families getting the healthcare access they deserve? [Huffington Post]
Do you pride yourself on being able to check your email, take phone calls and keep an eye on the news at the same time? According to experts, multitasking gets harder as we age. [Time]
A new report from the Guttmacher Institute reveals that most sexually active women use contraception, regardless of their religious beliefs. [CNN Belief Blog]
Read this brave story of a couple united in their shared cancer diagnosis and their love for each other. [New York Times]
The USDA’s new 2010 guidelines encourages Americans to eat eight ounces of seafood per week. The Washington Post offers tips on how to fit more servings into your life. [Washington Post]
Our own Contributing RP, Jeff Smith, may have never dreamed that any good would come from his required stay at a federal prison. But the unlikeliest of environments proved to be an unexpected fountain of entrepreneurial spirit.
Jeff writes about what he learned in this week’s Inc. magazine:
B.J. was one of many fellow inmates with big plans for the future. He vowed that upon his release, he’d leave the dope game and fly straight. He’d recently purchased a porn website targeted at men with a fetish for women having sex on top of or inside luxury cars, with a special focus that explained his nickname. For just $10,000, he had purchased the domain name, the site design, and all of the necessary back-end work enabling financial transactions. The only component B.J. needed to supply were the women, and due to his incarceration, he’d named his 19-year-old son “vice president for personnel and talent development” and charged him with overseeing auditions. Who says a good old-fashioned family business can’t make it anymore?
It was my first week in a federal prison, and I was beginning to see that it was far more nuanced than the hotbed of sex, drugs, and violence depicted on television documentaries. It was teeming with ambitious, street-smart men, many who appear to have been very successful drug dealers on the outside, and some of whom possess business instincts as sharp as those of the CEOs who wined and dined me six months before. Using somewhat different jargon than you might hear at Wharton, they discussed business concepts such as promotional incentives (“I don’t never charge no first-time user”), quality control and new product launches (“you try anything new, you better have some longtime crackhead test your new shit”), territorial expansion (“Once Dude on the East Side got chalked, I had my dopeboys out on his corners befo’ that motherf—er’s body was cold”), and even barriers to entry (“Any motherf—er that wanna do bidness on the West Side know me and my boys ain’t scurred to cap his ass”).
When Barrack Obama’s parents wed in 1961, interracial marriage was illegal in more than a dozen states. Now, nearly 15% of marriages are “mixed unions.” Will the idea of gay marriage being illegal in most parts of the U.S. seem absolutely unbelievable in 50 years? Yes. Is it unbelievable today? Let us know your thoughts. [Marrying Out]
And speaking of the Mad Men days of familial attitudes and beliefs, new research shows that even some of today’s beliefs about family, marriage, divorce and children may be as misinformed as Don Draper is about what women really want (and the long term effects of heavy smoking and copious amounts of alcohol). [Pew Research Center]
In the Will the Stupid Royal Wedding Between Two Extraordinarily Propitious and Ridiculously Polite Society People EVER Be Over (And Why Do So Many Care) Department, everybody’s trying to make a buck (er, quid) off these two: [Telegraph]
A number of interesting personal essays about the nature of love and domesticity in the 21st Century: [Salon]
There are great movies about love, and then there are whacked-out great movies about love. One of our favorite scenes from one of our favorites. [Sexy Tango]
How does one recover from a passion, a deep abiding interest and engagement? From a loss, maybe—that can take some work. But I don’t ever want to recover from politics, though I won’t run again.
I may have had less trouble than some recovering from a loss, because I chose after 12 years in Congress to take a long-shot chance at a U.S. Senate seat against Sen. Susan Collins, an incumbent with an approval rating over 60 percent. Those odds, I realize even more today, don’t usually work out, and mine did not.
When my friend Bill Delahunt retired rather than run again for the Massachusetts 10th district, he had a simple explanation: “I have a two-year old granddaughter.” I get it. My wife and I have a three-year old grandson and a one-year old granddaughter—with another on the way.
That’s not much of a prescription for younger recovering politicians, but it works for some of us.
I do miss the people, my constituents in Maine, all over the state. People of all ages and backgrounds from all walks of life; the students, the retired, labor activists, businessmen and women, health care providers, the uninsured, veterans and war protesters, delegates to party conventions and, yes, even (or especially) supporters of mine at political fund-raisers.
I don’t miss the hours, though. I ran into Tom Davis, the respected Virginia Congressman, on the street in Washington in 2009, the year after we had both left Congress. He just looked at me and said, “Weekends!”
Since I work now as the CEO of the Association of American Publishers, the public policy advocacy organization for the book publishing industry, I spend half of most months in Washington. So I still see some of my friends in (and after 2010) out of Congress. Most of those that have left in the last few years have few regrets, because the atmosphere of congressional activity has become poisonous.
As a form of recovery, I am refusing to leave the arena entirely. Within days of losing my Senate race, I started writing a book which has evolved into an attempt to explain the deeper sources of the polarization that cripples our ability to make long-term strategic decisions about our most pressing public issues.
For me, the signature question of my experience was, “Do these guys believe what they are saying?” That’s what we Democrats asked each other when we heard, “Tax cuts pay for themselves,” or “We’ll be welcomed as liberators,” or “Climate science isn’t proven.” We fully understood that many of our arguments made no sense to Republicans. Why not?
I am exploring the attitudes and ideas that shape our thinking on a range of issues. In particular, I want to highlight the enduring tension in American culture and politics between individualism and community. The working title is Dangerous Convictions: Inside a Polarized Congress.
But spring is coming, the snow is melting in Maine, the birds returning and soon the fish will be moving again. I will pick up my fly rod and go off with my wife, Diana, to one of our favorite Maine sporting camps, casting for brook trout and landlocked salmon during the day and listening to the loons at night.
I will finish the book this year, and like most authors, I live in the hope that it will make a difference in how Democrats and Republicans think about each other, and, just perhaps, work together for the common good.
We wrap up another very successful week (Our readership more than tripled since the week before) by introducing our sixth contributing recovering politician. He was a very successful Congressman who made a long-shot bid for the U.S. Senate against a popular incumbent, and fell a little short. Now in private life, he’s…blissful.
Read his story at 8:30 AM.
We also will feature another hilarious Friday Video Flashback, this time featuring our funniest contributing RP.
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Thu Apr 14, 2011 at 3:00 PM ET
The Politics of Speed
ESPN published its weekly NASCAR power rankings, with Carl Edwards assuming the number 1 position. [ESPN]
More from ESPN, Terry Blount writes about drivers who know less and less about the technology and mechanics of the cars they drive than their predecessors. [ESPN]
Have you ever seen a Chinese man drive two bumper cars (simultaneously) through traffic?? You will have after you click this link! I like to imagine that the guy is completely oblivious to his actions being unusual at all. [autoblog]
For those of you interested in jumping into the new market of electric cars, MSNBC has a list of 10 that you can expect to be available at some point in 2011. [MSNBC]
Blog this!
