Wallace G. Wilkinson - Political Life

Political Life

After announcing his plans for the World Coal Center, Wilkinson began attending meetings of the Lexington Urban City Council, where he advocated his fiscally conservative political views. He was an admirer of Ronald Reagan, although he said he wished Reagan was a Democrat like himself. In 1979, Wilkinson became involved with Terry McBrayer's campaign against John Y. Brown, Jr. in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. He held a critical fundraiser for Scotty Baesler's 1981 Lexington mayoral campaign, although most of the businessmen in Lexington favored Baesler's opponent. In the 1983 Democratic gubernatorial primary, he served as finance chairman for Harvey Sloane's campaign. When Sloane lost a close race to Lieutenant Governor Martha Layne Collins, Republican nominee Jim Bunning tried to enlist the support of Sloane and his supporters, including Wilkinson. After a month of consideration, however, Wilkinson endorsed the entire Democratic ticket. The following year, he managed former governor Brown's brief senatorial campaign. Already considering running for governor in 1987, Wilkinson had hoped to remove Brown as a potential competitor for that office by helping him get elected to the Senate, but Brown ended his campaign early for health reasons. Through his work in various the campaigns, Wilkinson found that he enjoyed the challenges of competing in the political arena. He lobbied the General Assembly to pass a multi-bank holding company bill allowing banking companies to own more than one Kentucky bank. The bill passed in 1984.