A warmup act for Trump?

By BERRY CRAIG

AFT Local 1360

Gov. Matt Bevin, who lost his bid for a second term on Tuesday, might be trotting out the warmup act for his hero next year.

Bevin is questioning the results of Tuesday's close election by charging "a number of significant irregularities" in the balloting. Democrat Andy Beshear beat him by about 5,000 votes. 

You can bet Donald Trump, who stumped for Bevin in Lexington Monday night, will somehow try to contest the vote next November, if it's close and he loses.  

Anyway, Bevin wants a recanvass. That means a check of the vote totals. 

"Bevin said he'll be 'entirely comfortable' with whatever the recanvass shows as long as he's confident the results are an accurate reflection of Kentuckians' votes," Joe Sonka wrote in the Louisville Courier-Journal.

What if Bevin isn't "confident?"

Here's more from Sonka: "Another potential option for a gubernatorial candidate to challenge results is a formal legislative election contest, in which a governor would have to call a special session of the Kentucky General Assembly.

"In such a session — which Republican Senate President Robert Stivers noted on Tuesday was a possibility under the state constitution — a committee of 11 members, eight from the House and three from the Senate, would hear evidence about possible election violations and make a final determination."

Bevin enjoys Republican super-majorities in both chambers.

It's not clear how Trump might try to overturn the 2020 election. He has Mitch McConnell and the Senate in his hip pocket. But there's that pesky Democratic House.

Anyway, it's a sure bet that Trump is keeping close tabs on what the governor might be mulling. It's also a cinch that if Bevin calls on The Ledge to save him, those big teacher rallies at the Capitol will be dwarfed by protests against such a banana republic power grab.

I earnestly hope Bevin is just mad that he lost--that his pique is mere posturing "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."  

But you never know what might happen with a governor who equates himself with godliness, who two weeks before the election invited conservative Republican-leaning preachers  to the mansion for "a very spiritual time” with him and who talks and acts like acts like "GOP" stands for "God's Own Party."