In a state where teachers have to spend money from their own paychecks to purchase school supplies for their classrooms, it seems a bit disingenuous for our education chief to be driving around in a brand new $31,000 car paid for with tax payer dollars. 

The vehicle in question is a brand new Chrysler 300 and has a base price of $18,101, but Education Commissioner Jon Draud requested upgrades that drove the price up to just a few hundred bucks shy of $31,000. It seems he wanted a satellite GPS system to “help him from getting lost” because he drives so much and he needed a bigger car for “safety reasons.” I am surprised that the environmental lobby isn’t all up in arms about this terrible misuse of carbon. 

Allowing this expenditure for the education commissioner reminds me of a little known but widely used perk that the U.S. House of Representatives voted for themselves a few years ago. They hid this wasteful gem deep inside the GSA (general services administration) program. It allows any of our elected representatives to lease a car on the taxpayer’s dime. Here’s the kicker: there is no price limit and all expenses are paid. Tax, title, license and gas are all covered. To make matters worse, there’s another loophole in the program which allows the legislators to lease more than one car! (Former Presidential candidate Tom Tancredo has two.)

Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, himself no friend to the taxpayer, leases a Cadillac Deville for $777 per month.   When asked about the program, he told CBS news “my constituents appreciate it.” Just let that comment sink in for a second. 

Congressman Gregory Meeks leases a Lexus LS460 for $998 per month, and Representative Ed Towns leases a Lincoln for $715 per month. Of the many brands of vehicles we’re paying for our distinguished elected officials to cruise around in, it should come as no surprise that BMW, Lexus, and Infiniti are among the most popular. Many of these cars are leased for more than what average Americans are paying for their mortgage or rent. In all, we know of at least 136 Congressmen who are taking advantage of the program, 72 of which are Republicans and 64 are Democrats. So, at a time when we’re all paying $4 a gallon for gas, these idiot savants are cruising around town in style. 

Governor Steve Beshear and others are predicting dire financial times ahead for Kentucky. I think they are inflating the numbers a bit to fit their casino/cigarette tax agenda, but they and their Republican counterparts are correct about one issue. If we don’t get pension reform very soon, our state is careening toward a financial cliff with no breaks.  I see no innovation coming out of Frankfort to deal with these issues – instead, I just see the state’s Commissioner of Education crisscrossing the Commonwealth in a shiny new Chrysler equipped with a very expensive GPS system.

Commissioner Jon Draud rolling up in a brand new $31,000 luxury car is the last thing I want to see when schools across Kentucky are being asked to cut their budgets. As far as I am concerned, whoever is responsible for the purchase of this car and its $13,000 in expensive upgrades should know exactly where they can stick Mr. Draud’s GPS.  A little Kentucky common sense tells us that the Education Commissioner and other state officials like him should all be driving used Yugos. And we’ll throw in a compass and tell them to come back when they’ve found the solution to our education problem.

Leland Conway is Executive Editor of www.conservativeedge.com and host of “The Pulse of Lexington” on 630WLAP. You can reach him for comment at Leland@wlap.com.

Let’s be honest.  If Obama were a white man and had won the state of Kentucky against Hillary Clinton, then all of us labeled as gun toting, God fearing, rednecks would have been accused of gender hatred for voting against a woman.  According to the mainstream media, including the larger print outlets of this state, we’re all bigots of some sort. 

I am offended and I find this broad generalization of my voting habits to be both wrong and more than a bit ironic.  The illustrious press and their bobble-headed intellectuals are having a heyday making the case that Barack Obama’s poor performance here is a result of deep seeded racism by uneducated voters.  For instance, the first exit poll question in West Virginia after their primary was, “How many years of high school did you complete?”  Not “who did you vote for” or “why did you choose the candidate you chose,” but basically, “can you read and write?”  How is this not bigoted on the part of the media funded research group to frame their poll with such questions?

They appear never to have stopped to think that Obama’s double digit losses in areas like this could have more to do with an offense he committed against us rather than one we theoretically committed against him.  Does anyone remember his small town America clinging to guns, God and bitterness comment?  I’m not bitter – I’m just mad.

The mainstream media has assumed that Kentuckians, who chose another candidate over Obama by a wide margin, could only be doing so because of his race.  It’s as if they are saying, “Don’t those poor uneducated country bumpkins see the throngs of people fainting at Obama’s feet?  There is no excuse for this because we know they all have satellite!”

I propose some different reasons that many of us aren’t voting for Barack Obama.  It may have something to do with his upbringing by a mother who was a member of the Communist anti-western movement.  It may have something to do with one of his early mentors, Frank Marshall Davis, who was a card carrying member of the Moscow linked Communist Party of America.  Or perhaps his later mentor, the infamous 60’s radical Marxist agitator, Saul Alinsky.  Or it could be Obama’s “friendly” association with the former Weather Underground terrorist, William C. Ayers. 

Maybe it’s that flag lapel pin thing.  In and of itself, it’s not that big of a deal whether a candidate wears a flag lapel pin or not, but coupled with his other statements and with Obama’s wife’s recent declaration that for the first time in her “adult life” she was “proud of America,” it leaves a lot of us proud Americans with some big questions about this guy.

Really, Mrs. Obama, the first time you can be proud of America?  You mean you couldn’t be proud when in 1955 Rosa Parks showed the true meaning of the American Spirit and chose not to give up her seat on the bus?  Or when in 1964 the hideous Jim Crow laws were abolished by the civil rights act?  Or in the 1980’s when the iron curtain fell and democracy trumped communism?  Are the Obamas so self-centered that they are blinded to all of the good things about America?

I don’t think racism is the reason the heartland is having trouble with Obama after all. It could be that we are simply more perceptive to his elitism and lack of substance than the rest of the country. 

We’re dubious when Barack Obama talks about his support for the second amendment when we know that he sat on a board that voted to call for a complete ban on all handguns.  It makes us uncomfortable that he sat under a hateful and bigoted pastor for 20 years and claims never to have heard his controversial sermons.  We’re skeptical when his wife says that we all need to “give up a piece of our pie so someone else can have more.”  We’re incredulous when a slick politician comes to town to tell us that he can save us with “hope for change” but he can’t seem to tell us exactly what this change is.   

Perhaps here in Kentucky we are not the bumbling racist rednecks that the mainstream media thinks we are.  Maybe we’re just intuitive.  Whether Democrat or Republican, most of us still have an acute sense of what the American Dream really is and it doesn’t include audacious change for the sake of ambiguous hope. 

I am not a racist.  It is very disingenuous for the press or anyone else to generalize Kentuckians and accuse us of blanket racism because of our votes.  There are many reasons why we may not choose to support a candidate with an unclear background and a tenuous record.  Perhaps Kentuckians are simply exercising their prerogative in thinking someone else would be a better choice.

 Leland Conway is Executive Editor of www.conservativeedge.com and host of “The Pulse of Lexington” on 630WLAP.  You can reach him for comment at Leland@wlap.com.