A gracious Fogle concedes defeat following election night radio coverage

By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette

KENNY FOGLE

Tuesday, May 16, 2006, 11:15 p.m. -- As WBRT's Tom Redmon and Ed Carty were nearing the end of the radio station's election night coverage, station owner and judge-executive candidate Kenny Fogle stepped into the studio with Carty.

Fogle joined the election coverage during Carty and Redmon's analysis of the election results and when the conversation touched on the judge-executive race.

Ed Carty interrupted Redmon to tell listeners "Kenny Fogle is here now and I think he'd like to make a statement."

"I didn't have to walk too far to make my concession speech because I was only in the next room over," Fogle quipped to Redmon and Carty.

Though disappointed in the outcome, Fogle said he wish to extend his congratulations to incumbent Dean Watts on winning his fourth term.

"It's obvious the people of Nelson County are pretty satisfied with the way things are going," Fogle said.

He also told listeners he was very disappointed with the low voter turnout, which according to Nelson County Clerk Phyllis Mattingly was approximately 400 voters lower than the 2002 primary election.

"The voter turnout was a lot lower than I really hoped it would be," Fogle said. "But at the same time it was a convincing win by Judge Watts and I want to give him congratulations on that right now. I'm obviously disappointed, but life goes on."

The low voter turnout is simply a sign of apathy, Fogle said. "Now that I'm out of the candidate's race, I can go back to my editorial part of working at the radio station, and I can tell you I was just disappointed by the voters."

He told WBRT listeners his disappointment wasn't due to any notion it would have changed the outcome of the election, but simply that it's a sign people don't care about elections. "I'm disappointed in voters who won't go out and vote," he said. "What kind of American is that? I'm going to sound bitter about that for a long time, there's just no excuse not to vote."