With 97% of the vote for governor in for my home state of Kentucky, Democratic candidate Steve Beshear was ahead 58.9% to 41.1% over incumbent Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher. That landslide margin of 17.8% had been pretty steady since the first weeks after the gubernatorial primaries in the spring.

IBeshear has a lot of faults in common with the national democratic leadership. He's about as colorless as a politician can get (I met him in Morehead, KY this spring), relatively conservative, and highly risk averse. Beshear's signature issue was putting the legalization of casino gambling on the ballot. He didn't even commit to casino gambling as a good idea. Democratic leaders Pelosi and Reid have been potted plants ever since they caved on Iraq war funding last summer. Like Beshear, they're "there," they "work hard," they don't look particularly good or bad, and they don't do much on their own. Actually, that sounds like a lot of Democrats

Yet Beshear still won handily. I believe two things kept Beshear 17% ahead throughout the election campaign. There was the fact that the Republicans were somewhat divided as a result of Ann Northup's primary challenge to Fletcher. More important, opinion hardened against Fletcher early as evidenced by Fletcher's Bush-like approval ratings. Partisan Democrats grew more committed to replacing Fletcher, weak Democrats decided to vote their party, and swing voters swung to Beshear without thinking too much about Beshear himself. It was an election that a potted Democrat could win and Beshear was the right plant at the right time.

The question for the 2008 presidential election is whether a potted Democrat will be able to win the presidency as well. The lesson of Kentucky is that there is going to be a hard core anti-Republican vote among weak Democrats and Independents. A potted plant Democrat might not be able to win against somebody as tough and smart as Giuliani, but it might not take much more than a potted plant either.