53. Fourth Street and Muhammad Ali Boulevard

UPDATED: 5:53 AM
Weather: Wind advisory in effect today
The Courier-Journal

This morning's on-line paper began with the Wind Advisory in effect all day for Louisville. It seems the meteorologists who couldn't find an appropriate amount of snow for us snow enthusiasts have indeed found some wind if there are wind enthusiasts out there. All through the night, I was awakened by the wind blowing through the windows in my stariwell, sounding like an airplane engine preparing to take off. One of my plastic outdoor chairs, the kind you buy at Kroger for $6.99 had blown over to the patio of a neighboring townhouse. From my window here on the 10th floor, I can look out of the stoplights serving the intersection of 6th and Jefferson streets, which at times are a little more horizontal than vertical.

Later this afternoon, more wind is arriving, as if we need it. President George W. Bush, previously mentioned as the 43rd best president in our nation's history, is arriving to raise some money for the financially cash-strapped campaign of United States Senate Minority Leader Addison Mitchell McConnell, Jr., whose campaign chest is down to its last $3,000,000.00 or so. Along the way, the president will make some official business stops, no doubt to qualify the trip as a government expense, speaking to some students at the University of Louisville, honoring a volunteer at the Cabbage Patch Settlement House in the Old Louisville/Limerick neighborhood, and crossing over to the Right Bank of the Ohio River at Milepost 606 to visit with some young Americans at Silver Creek Elementary School in New Albany, Indiana.

As with this visit, the last time the Commander-In-Chief was in the area is was to do some politicking - imagine that. You would think he would be so busy with the War, the economy, North Korea, and the newly elected Democratic Congress that politicking would be way down on the list of things to do. But no. Last year, he was across the river in Sellersburg, in Indiana's 9th Congressional District, to campaign for former Congressman Mike Sodrel, who lost his reelection bid to Baron Hill, the man he had defeated two years earlier. Sodrel has promised a rematch in 2008. Bush was also in Louisville to campaign for Congressman Geof Davis, who doesn't represent Louisville. Bush did not take the time to visit with former Congresswoman Anne Northup on that visit, which was probably wise, given that Mr. Bush, in his two elections never carried her congressional district. The 3rd Congressional District has supported Democrats to the Republic's highest post since 1992. Instead, he travelled out US 42 into Davis' district for a fundraiser in Oldham County.

Today, Senator McConnell is bringing the president to the Seelbach Hotel, one of Louisville's two historic downtown hotels. The hotel opened in 1905 and served Louisville's downtown for seventy years before closing in 1975, as hotels and motels in the outlying county became the places to stay when staying in Louisville. In reopened on April 13, 1982, in a splendid celebration of the beginning of Fourth Street's revitalization. I remember attending the ceremonies, which had different themes on each floor. On one floor was a country-western theme, another of old Europe, another of the South, and so on. Each floor's theme including bands playing appropriate music and food representing the various regions. It was the first place I had ever seen an ice sculpture, this one up on the 10th floor. The festivities were overseen by Louisville Mayor Harvey I. Sloane and Kentucky Governor John Y. Brown, Jr.

Tonight, just in time for rush hour, one can visit with the senior senator from Kentucky and his leader, the president, for a cool $2000.00 a plate. This isn't the president's first visit to the hotel. Located on one of Louisville's windiest corners at Fourth Street and Muhammad Ali Boulevard, the Seelbach (known as the Sheraton in the 1960s) has hosted several presidents, including Taft, FDR, Truman, and Johnson, among others. On October 8, 1984, I met both Vice President Walter Mondale and President Ronald Reagan there, although neither was a guest. The night before they had debated at the Kentucky Center for the Arts, which had just opened the previous November, in the first presidential debate of that cycle. In 1988, the late Marty Welch, a local Democratic Party strategist and raconteur introduced me to Paul Simon, the politician, not the singer, on the front steps of the Seelbach. I supported Senator Simon in the 1988 presidential cycle. For many years, Room 743 served as a Democratic Party party room, having first become popular the year Earle Clements was elected governor of Kentucky, back in 1947.

But tonight, it will be Republican Party central. There are protests planned by the local Peace activists, as well as some Democratic Party stalwarts, some of whom are both. There will also be some rumblings amongst those who use either Chestnut, Ali, 1st Street, or I-65 as part of their rush-hour departure from downtown Louisville, as all of those streets will be closed. Some businesses are having to close early to allow thier workers a chance to get out of town before the president gets into town. I doubt forcing a business to close early is part of the Republican Party's official package of concern for small businesses.

Bush and McConnell will pass by the Jefferson County Attorney's Child Support Office in that block of Ali between 3rd and 4th, where people neither of them will ever meet (although Mitch probably had to pay child support for his daughters from his first marriage) go to keep current their support orders, with a support staff of great people working there whose first concern is neither the payor or the payee, but the children involved. There will also be at the hotel waitstaff and housekeeping personnel attending to the senator and his friends, many of whom work at least one other job beside the one at the hotel to make ends meet, usually doing so at very little above the minimum wage, which had languished unchanged for many years and in the halls of congress for an eternity it seemed, an eternity which ended with the election of a Democratic Congress. The election of that congress, including Democrats John Yarmuth and Baron Hill, of Kentucky's 3rd and Indiana's 9th respectively, was brought on in great part as a response to the extremely inadequate, incompetent, and often incomprehensible administration of George W. Bush and his friends, friends like Addison Mitchell McConnell, Jr.