In 1986, Democrats were flexing their muscles throughout the Kentucky. Not only did they hold both U.S. Senate seats, but they held the governorship, a majority of U.S. House seats, and control of both legislative chambers.
As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell recalled, "... [I]n 1986, our party held only one statewide seat and reportedly only had a net worth of $300."
But, he quickly added, "[n]eedless to say, much in our party and the Commonwealth has changed since then."
McConnell made those remarks in eulogizing the death of Robert Gable, who assumed the helm of the state party chair in 1986 and began the arduous, but eventually successful process of turning things around.
Gable, who died at age 90 in November, was one of the pivotal players responsible for taking his state's GOP out of the doldrums to a point where today it holds both U.S. Senate seats, all but one of Kentucky's six U.S. House seats, and hefty majorities in both houses of the state Legislature.
Whether he was raising money or trying to get rival factions within the party to stop their disputes and settle down, Gable did so with what his close friend McConnell called "unflappable focus." He rarely raised his voice. And in dealing with all the internecine warfare the party faced, he was remembered first and foremost as a true Kentucky gentleman.
Although he was born in New York, Gable was the scion of a family steeped in Kentucky. His great-grandfather Justus S. Stearns founded the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company. A graduate of Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts and Stanford University, the young Gable served in the U.S. Navy and then went to work for the family business.
But his early passion was for politics. Gable helped his friend and fellow Navy veteran Howard Baker from nearby Tennessee in his losing Senate race in 1964 and winning race two years later.
When Republican Louie Nunn captured the governorship in 1967, he tapped his friend and supporter Gable to be commissioner of Kentucky State Parks.
In 1972, with the retirement of Republican Sen. John Sherman Cooper, Gable decided to run for the Senate when no other viable GOP hopeful came forward. But on the day of the filing deadline, former Gov. Nunn jumped into the race — almost surely at the urging of then-President Richard Nixon. He won the primary easily, with Gable as the runner-up in a five-candidate race.
"And I think Robert would have beaten [State Senate Democrat leader] Dee Huddleston in the November election if he had been the Republican nominee," Charlie Grizzle, former executive director of the Kentucky GOP and Reagan administration official, told Newsmax. "Dee kept pounding away at Louie for an unpopular sales tax, and it worked."
While Nixon swept the state with 63% of the vote, Huddleston edged out Nunn in the Senate race by 51% to 48%.
Three years later, Gable bounced back to win the Republican nomination for governor. But the race seemed a hopeless undertaking.
Democrat Gov. Julian Carroll had moved up from lieutenant governor when Democrat Gov. Wendell Ford went to the Senate in 1974, and Democrats seemed on a roll because of voter animosity toward the Republicans over the Watergate scandal.
What most Kentuckians recall about the race was the lone candidates' debate on WET television. During opening statements, Gable pulled out a bell from his pocket, dubbed it a "truth bell," and promised to ring it every time Carroll wasn't telling the truth.
Despite admonitions from moderator and Kentucky Press Association President Al Smith not to ring it, Gable indeed did ring it when Carroll made a statement about the Republican testifying in favor of building a dam on the Big South of the Cumberland River. Moderator Smith gave him an icy stare and strongly implied that the debate would be discontinued if he disobeyed again.
"When Bob Gable rang the truth bell against a powerful governor headed for a near-coronation," recalled veteran Louisville (Kentucky) Courier Journal political writer Al Cross, who was there for the debate, "he was sort of like the boy in the Hans Christian Andersen folktale who truthfully said the emperor had no clothes."
The "truth bell" and Gable's overall good nature were among the reasons his party turned to him to become chairman in 1986. Gradually, the party's coffers grew fat and Republicans began winning legislative races and more U.S. House seats. In 2003, for the first time since Nunn's election, the GOP took the governorship with the election of Rep. Ernie Fletcher.
While rebuilding the state GOP, Gable seemed to be a one-man perpetual-motion machine, serving on the boards of just about everything from the Bank of McCreary County to Blue Cross and Blue Shield to the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Frankfort.
"What one remembers the most about Robert is that he threw himself hard in everything he did and succeeded," said Grizzle, "and in the process, he remained a true gentleman."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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