Bob Heleringer: Who is the real 'extremist' in the race for Louisville mayor? Opinion

News travels fast. Even in Kentucky.

When the voters in fire-engine red Kansas on Aug. 2 rejected a constitutional amendment to reverse a state Supreme Court decision that upheld abortion rights, Democrat candidates from county coroner to governor decided to draft into that tailwind that (they believe) guarantees their victory this November. All they have to do to seal the deal is tar and feather their pro-life Republican opponents as “extremists.”

Letters:Was Bob Heleringer's 'extremist' column off base or what needed to be said?

And so one day after the Jefferson County FOP endorsed Republican Bill Dieruf for Mayor of Louisville, his Democratic opponent, Craig “Me Too” Greenberg, called Mr. Dieruf an “extremist” who “refuses to say if he’ll allow the police to arrest women [on what charge?] seeking abortions.” In the same breath, first-time candidate Mr. Greenberg celebrated his endorsement by Planned Parenthood, the world’s largest provider of elective abortions. Then he unleashed his first TV ad featuring a bevy of women who describe Mr. Dieruf as an “anti-choice extremist” and a man who is “just too extreme” on abortion to entrust with the highest office in our community.

More:Businessman vs. businessman: What separates Dieruf and Greenberg in Louisville mayor race

At first blush, Mr. Dieruf should be ecstatic he’s being attacked this far out from Election Day. It proves what most insiders believe − that the mayor’s race is truly competitive, which is almost unfathomable. Mr. Dieruf, the current mayor of Jeffersontown, is the Republican candidate for mayor. Let me repeat that: “Bill Dieruf is the Republican candidate for mayor of Louisville, Kentucky,” an office the GOP hasn’t won since 1965 when your humble columnist was a freshman at Trinity High School.

At this point, if the past is prologue, Mr. Greenberg should be idling away his time spell-checking his inaugural address. Instead, with the race tightening, the Democrat finds himself in the unusual position of having to find an issue, any issue, that might restore his “inevitability” status. He’s desperate to somehow convince undecided voters that abortion is the ultimate issue, not our beloved city’s stratospheric crime statistics, stagnant economy, racial strife, an empty and lifeless downtown and an abysmal public education system that has steadily deteriorated under the current Democratic administration.

Rather than defend that woeful record, an impossibility, Mr. Greenberg seems to want to have a one-issue referendum on abortion, an issue that Louisville’s next Mayor will have absolutely nothing to do with either passing any laws or enforcing same through the courts. Mr. Greenberg, a Harvard law grad, should know that those responsibilities are the province of the legislative and judicial branches of government, respectively, not the executive branch.

But if we’re going to debate “extremism” over the next five weeks, let’s see who deserves the label. At the national level, all Democrats in the White House and the U.S. Congress (except one, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas) believe in abortion-on-demand up until the second of birth − even their sacrosanct Roe v. Wade didn’t go that far. They believe that taxpayers should pay for elective abortions for anyone who says they can’t afford the cost. They don’t support laws requiring life-saving measures for an infant who might survive a late-term abortion. They aren’t for basic regulations for abortion clinics such as having contracts with nearby hospitals. They strongly oppose informed consent laws or brief (48-hour) waiting periods despite the irrevocable nature of this momentous decision. Polls have consistently shown, over decades, that the majority of American people disagree with the Democratic platform on all of those ancillary issues.

More:Louisville mayor candidate Bill Dieruf demands feds release LMPD report before election

But Churchill Downs will move the Kentucky Derby to Stinking Creek (in Knox County) before someone dare ask candidate Greenberg the following questions: “Mr. Greenberg, you’ve criticized your opponent’s pro-life position on abortion, do you believe that a woman should be able to terminate her pregnancy while she is in labor and about to give birth? And, as a follow-up, if somehow that full-term baby should survive such an abortion, do you oppose any law that would require the hospital to take all steps necessary to save that baby’s life?”

If Mr. Greenberg’s answers to those questions are “yes,” then indeed there really is an abortion extremist running for mayor of Louisville and that candidate’s name is Craig A. Greenberg.

Bob Heleringer is a Louisville attorney and a former Kentucky state Representative (1980-2002). He can be reached at helringr@bellsouth.net.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Who is the real 'extremist' in the race for Louisville mayor? Opinion