Kentucky Derby

RIGHT before the 1990 elections, the frustrations of a draining campaign finally got to Gex Williams, a first-time candidate for the Kentucky state house. He and his campaign manager started yelling at each other in the middle of a parking lot as a dozen startled volunteers looked on. Williams shed his scowl and asked, “Do you wanna pray?” The group joined in prayer, and three days later Williams won by 47 votes, out of more than 11,000 cast.

Having won by a whisker, Williams has gone on to establish himself as the most dynamic legislator in the state capital, a master parliamentarian whose feisty pursuit of pro-life causes and education reform infuriates opponents. The Democrats redrew Williams’s district three times in an effort to force him from office. Their first try only drove him to greater success in the State Senate. Now they have finally succeeded in pushing him out of Frankfort altogether, but at a price they may come to regret. Last spring, Williams announced his intention of running for the U.S. Congress in Kentucky’s 4th District, which Jim Bunning (R.) is leaving to run for the Senate. Today Williams faces his biggest political challenge yet: battling a GOP establishment whose handpicked candidate, Rick Robinson, has the lead in money and organization.

About the Author

John J. Miller

John J. Miller, a former national correspondent for National Review, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.

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RIGHT before the 1990 elections, the frustrations of a draining campaign finally got to Gex Williams, a first-time candidate for the Kentucky state house. He and his campaign manager started yelling at each other in the middle of a parking lot as a dozen startled volunteers looked on. Williams shed his scowl and asked, “Do you wanna pray?” The group joined in prayer, and three days later Williams won by 47 votes, out of more than 11,000 cast.

Having won by a whisker, Williams has gone on to establish himself as the most dynamic legislator in the state capital, a master parliamentarian whose feisty pursuit of pro-life causes and education reform infuriates opponents. The Democrats redrew Williams’s district three times in an effort to force him from office. Their first try only drove him to greater success in the State Senate. Now they have finally succeeded in pushing him out of Frankfort altogether, but at a price they may come to regret. Last spring, Williams announced his intention of running for the U.S. Congress in Kentucky’s 4th District, which Jim Bunning (R.) is leaving to run for the Senate. Today Williams faces his biggest political challenge yet: battling a GOP establishment whose handpicked candidate, Rick Robinson, has the lead in money and organization.

About the Author

John J. Miller

John J. Miller, a former national correspondent for National Review, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.