By Berry Craig

MAYFIELD, Ky. -- In the old days, a disgraced soldier got kicked out of the army to the beat of a drum. The sound drew attention to his bad behavior. It was also a warning to would-be military miscreants.

This Kentucky Democrat hopes Illinois Democrats drum Gov. Rod Blagojevich out of the party. Watching him frog marched away to the Big House in handcuffs and leg irons would be better, but that’s up to the feds.

Meanwhile, Blagojevich looks like Santa-come-early for the Republicans. Given the shellacking the GOP took Nov. 4, the McCain-Palin faithful were expecting a less than holly-jolly Christmas, you betcha.

Naturally, the Republicans are working overtime to make political hay off Blagojevich’s arrest for attempting to hustle President-elect Barack Obama’s vacant senate seat for cash or a cushy job for his wife (Some wag dubbed her “Lady Macbeth.”). Never mind that the feds say Obama is uninvolved and blameless. The Republicans are playing the guilt-by-association card anyway – how effectively remains to be seen.

But the Blagojevich scandal could cost the Democrats Obama’s senate seat.

Blagojevich can appoint anybody he wants to succeed Obama – even himself. Top Democrats in Illinois and Washington are dissing that idea. They want a special election.

Such a vote would be risky business. It would at least crack open the door for an unexpected Republican pickup. No matter who the Democratic candidate might be, the Republicans would make Blagojevich the issue, even if he resigns.

The voters might punish the Democrat for the governor’s misdeeds.

Political scandals are like a concrete block dropped in a swimming pool. First, there’s the big splash. The shock waves follow, one after another.

Kentucky Democrats know. A steamy sex scandal involving a Democratic governor cost us the governorship, a U.S. Senate seat and, in my part of the commonwealth, a state senate seat.

Gov. Paul Patton’s tryst became public in 2002 after his mistress sued him. She claimed he abused his office by helping her business while they were lovers, then tried to ruin her because she broke off the affair.

The suit went nowhere. But the political fallout lasted a long time.

“Before the scandal, Patton was one of our most popular governors,” said Gerald Watkins, a political science professor at the West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducah.

The scandal made Patton political poison. The first casualty was a Democratic state senate candidate from Paducah in 2002.

“He was very popular and everybody had expected him to beat the Republican incumbent,” Watkins said. “Even though the Democrat had nothing to do with the Patton scandal, there is no doubt in my mind that when people went to vote that November, they had the scandal on their minds and reelected the Republican.”

In 2003, Patton’s attorney general, Democrat Ben Chandler, ran for governor. Chandler (now a congressman) was not connected to the scandal in any way. He and Patton were publicly feuding, according to Watkins. “They wouldn’t even speak to each other for a while,” he added.

Even so, Republican Ernie Fletcher campaigned on a promise to “clean up the mess in Frankfort” and became the first Republican elected governor of Kentucky since 1967. (Fletcher made his own mess, got indicted over a state employee hiring scandal and lost his bid for a second term.)

Before Conner outed Patton as her paramour, he was planning to challenge U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning in 2004, the year after the governor finished his second term. More than a few pundits had picked Patton to win.

But instead of going to Washington in triumph, Patton headed home to Pikeville in disgrace. Dan Mongiardo, a state senator, took on Bunning, who narrowly won reelection. “If not for the scandal, Patton would have run and likely won,” Watkins said.

Of course, Kentucky isn’t Illinois. The Bluegrass State is one of the reddest of the Red States. McCain won Kentucky big; Obama cruised in the Land of Lincoln.

“But with the Blagojevich scandal, holding Obama’s seat won’t be as easy as it would have been,” Watkins said. “Only time will tell how much damage he has done to the Democratic Party in Illinois and even nationwide.”

If nothing else, Blagojevich has provided the Republicans some unexpected holiday cheer. They were bracing themselves for the winter of their discontent with the Obamas packing their bags for the White House and the Democrats savoring enhanced majorities in the House and Senate.

Thanks to Rod Blagojevich, the Democrats’ Senate majority could shrink by one. If that happens, maybe the Republicans can give Blagojevich their Most Valuable Player award for 2008.

He could put the trophy on a shelf in the prison cell he so richly merits.