PERENNIAL CANDIDATE GATEWOOD GALBRAITH DIES

Gatewood Galbraith, a perennial candidate for public office who
advocated the legalization of marijuana and was one of the most
colorful characters on Kentucky's political landscape for three
decades, died at his home in Lexington, the Fayette County coroner's
office said Wednesday. He was 64.

The cause of death was listed as complications from chronic emphysema.

Family members found Galbraith unresponsive in his bed Wednesday
morning, the coroner's office said in a statement.

"He had been sick for several days with congestion in his lungs (and)
. had been suffering from cold-like symptoms which had been
complicated by chronic asthma and emphysema," the statement said.

Galbraith's brother, Hank, a family therapist, didn't respond to a
message left at his Lexington office.

Galbraith was fast with a quip that often made him the star of
political debates. But his likable personality never translated into votes.

Running as an independent, he finished third in last November's
general election for governor, behind Democrat Steve Beshear and
Republican David Williams, with 9 percent of the vote.

"Gatewood was a great man, a good man," Dea Riley, his lieutenant
governor running mate in the election, said in an interview. "He
really cared for this community, he really cared for Kentucky."

Over the past 30 years, he undertook nine unsuccessful campaigns for
four different offices. Five times he ran for governor - three times
as a Democrat, once on the Reform ticket and last year as an
independent - twice for the 6th District congressional seat and once
each for state agriculture commissioner and attorney general.

During that time he filed for bankruptcy and was divorced. He said he
sometimes had to live in his car to make child-support payments - he
and his wife had three daughters - and struggled to pay federal taxes
and local occupational fees to Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government.

A lawyer by trade, Galbraith acknowledged that he sometimes let his
law practice languish as he ran repeatedly, saying during one debate
this year, perhaps fancifully, that if he wasn't running he could be
earning $500,000 annually practicing law.

He wore his own financial problems as a badge, saying in one race,
"I'm the only person running who knows what it's like to struggle to
pay the light bill."

Riley said people should remember Galbraith for more than the
marijuana advocacy that defined his political career.

"He really was one who provoked and opened dialogue, honest and
sincere dialogue," Riley said. "He wanted to reinvite people back
into the process of government. ... He was a champion of the people."

Both Riley's and Galbraith's Facebook pages were flooded with
condolences and memories of him.

Former Secretary of State John Y. Brown III posted on Galbraith's
page, "Heaven will have a more interesting governor's race in 4 years
than KY. RIP Gatewood Galbraith."

Beshear issued a statement Wednesday saying that he and his wife,
Jane, were saddened by Galbraith's death.

"He was a gutsy, articulate and passionate advocate who never shied
away from a challenge or potential controversy," the governor said.
"His runs for office prove he was willing to do more than just argue
about the best direction for the state - he was willing to serve, and
was keenly interested in discussing issues directly with our
citizens. He will be missed."

House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, said Galbraith "had a
commonsense way of looking at problems and government. Even though
some of his ideas may have been far-fetched, others were worth
certainly considering."

Williams, the Senate president, said in a statement that Galbraith's
"wit, humor, and intellect made him one of the most intriguing of
Kentucky originals."

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., issued a
statement saying that Galbraith was "a truly memorable character who
loved our state and its people."

Born in Carlisle, in Nicholas County, Galbraith was the middle child
of seven. The family moved to Lexington when he was 12 so his sisters
could attend the University of Kentucky.

Galbraith entered the public's consciousness in 1976, after failing
in his first attempt to pass the bar exam, by forming the Future
Kentucky Marijuana Growers Association Inc. and the Kentucky
Marijuana Feasibility Study Inc., which he used to lobby for the
legalization of marijuana.

That led to his first race - a run for the Democratic nomination for
agriculture commissioner in 1983 - during which he had a
pro-marijuana platform that drew great attention.

He wore a hemp suit, campaigned in his "hempmobile," a used
Mercedez-Benz station wagon that ran on hemp oil, and won the
nickname "Gateweed," among some.

By the early 1990s, Galbraith was one of the most recognizable faces
nationally in the movement to legalize marijuana, said Allen St.
Pierre, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, a group on
whose board Galbraith once served.

Among other things, Galbraith argued for legalizing marijuana on
grounds that it was an inexpensive medication that could treat a
variety of ailments and that public rersources were being wasted in
efforts to enforce the laws against it.

"He was willing to crawl on broken glass to talk to anyone who would
listen to him talk about reforming marijuana laws," St. Pierre said.
"He was a bigger-than-life figure."

Galbraith became friends with country singer Willie Nelson, who also
favored the legalization of marijuana, and during one campaign
frequently wore a cowboy hat Nelson had given him.

The "Hempmobile" was repossessed after his 1991 gubernatorial bid
when he couldn't pay all of the campaign's printing bills. And in
later races he moderated his position on marijuana, pushing for
legalization of medical marijuana and the cultivation of industrial
hemp, the plant from which marijuana comes.

In 1995 he had to promise, if elected, not to smoke pot in the
governor's mansion to get Jerry Hammond, a labor leader, to run for
lieutenant governor on his ticket.

That same year he was jailed briefly in Lexington for disrupting the
city's Independence Day Parade. He led a group of protesters who were
upset that the parade was also celebrating the 50th anniversary of
the United Nations.

"This misuse of Independence Day is yet another attack on U.S. pride
and sovereignty promoted by globalists and internationalists who
apparently believe that the concepts of national sovereignty and
state independence are obsolete," Galbraith shouted during the
protest, according to a Lexington Herald-Leader story.

Despite moderating his views on marijuana, Galbraith remained
colorful and controversial.

In 2004, he published his autobiography, titled "The Last Free Man in
America Meets the Synthetic Subversion." He often bragged that even
though the book omitted "all of the sex and half the drugs," it was
still a good read.

Last August he blistered Beshear at the annual Fancy Farm political
picnic, after the governor eschewed a traditional political speech
and talked only about the U.S. troops he had recently visited in Iraq
and Afghanistan.

"For you to go over there and try to hide behind the bodies of our
young men and women in the military. ... I've got an honorable
discharge from the U.S. Marines, and I was highly offended by it," he said.

In his 2011 campaign for governor, Galbraith said his views were
straightforward and simple.

"I'm a Barry Goldwater conservative," he told The Courier-Journal in
October. "I want the government to stay out of my life unless I
represent a threat to somebody else or their property."

He also pushed for a plan that would give a $5,000 voucher to every
graduate of a Kentucky high school to pay for books, tuition and
housing at any college or trade school, saying that Kentucky needs
cosmetologists as well as college graduates.

Both the House and Senate observed moments of silence in Galbraith's
honor Wednesday.

In remarks from the House floor, Stumbo praised Galbraith as a man of
political courage and good humor.

"It's only fitting that we say something nice about Gatewood," Stumbo
said. "And I'm sure wherever he is, looking down or up upon us, he
would say to whoever's listening, 'Well that's the first time he said
anything nice about me in a long time.' "

Funeral arrangements were pending.