Payday Loans and Cash Advances. We specialize in payday loans and cash advances with no credit checks….

You are the only person who has publicly stated that the crowd was 50/50 and you are wrong. All the bloggers on the left and right agree that, objectively, the Democratic activists outnumbered the Republican by a factor or more.

However, I will retract my statement that you claim was a lie and simply chalk it up to poor eyesight and hearing in your old age.

Now, if you went out in the crowd of and counted those who were not watching and listening the political speaking, I’d agree the crowd was less than 50 50 since the event was held in western kentucky where registered Republicans are hard to find . But among those who were yelling and screaming and listening, …. it was 50 50. You are only fooling yourself if ou think it was 5 to 1.

You are correct. I am not a connoisseur of blogs. I read and enjoy Bluegassreport where some valid and thought provoking issues are raised. (Many also are not valid.) I’ve been navigating through your site today (which I can do since I’m not a state worker) and find some interesting stuff… obviously slanted, biased and one sided, but interesting.

The fact that you had to hunt for this blog, which is probably about the third most trafficked blog in the state after the Herald-Leader’s PolWatchers and Mark Nickolas’s BluegrassReport tells me you’re not a connoisseur of the medium. For future reference, PolWatchers links to us directly, as does pretty much every progressive blog.

Of course, we would probably know more about the quality of your paper’s reporting if it weren’t behind a subscription wall. As I’m sure you’re aware, even papers like the New York Times are dropping that hurdle.

The crowd at the Democratic breakfast was the largest in recent years, but I’ve seen larger. There have been times when people had to wait for tables to eat breakfast. It wasn’t a record, and if you had knowledge of the history of the event you would know that. Also, the crowd at the Republican breakfast was down from previous years.

You are correct that Robbie Rudolph is not a great speaker. I don’t know that he had the worse speech, though. Fletcher delivered one of his best speeches ever at Fancy Farm and Beasher did an excellent job of laying out his platform and did a good job on the issue of the Ten Commandments. I liked his line “It is not where you hang them but whether you practice them.” I also liked a couple of lines from Republicans but there’s no need to mention they on this Democratic blog.

You may not understand how a newspaper works. Views of the management and ownership of the paper are expressed on the editorial page. Opinions by their very nature biased. It is true The Paducah Sun’s views are conservative the same as the views of The Courier-Journal are liberal. It is the right of each paper to have a viewpoint. But don’t confuse the views on the editorial pages with the new stories that are published in either paper. The news stories are a reflection of events that are covered and not the political views of editorial writers.

Political debate is an entertaining sport especially with the growth of Internet blogs like this one. It gives people an oportunity to read a wide range of views. Some of which are worth reading but some are so far off the wall that they aren’t worth the effort to click the mouse.

Political Blogs are slanted but they also raise some valid viewpoints on all sides of issues that people need to know in forming their own views and in deciding who to vote for. The influence in the political process is expanding and will in the future, especially in next year’s political race.

I’ll have my YearlyKos report up tomorrow. Believe me, people KNOW what we’re doing here, and they like it.

Fancy Farm
Candidates Fletcher, Beshear go on the offensive
By Bill Bartleman bbartleman@paducahsun.com–270.575.8651

Sunday, August 05, 2007

FANCY FARM, Ky. — The battle lines were drawn Saturday as Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher and Democratic challenger Steve Beshear tossed their heaviest artillery yet in their political war to determine who will be the next governor.

Fletcher made it clear at the 127th annual Fancy Farm Picnic that he’ll focus on Beshear’s record as attorney general and support of casino gambling.

Beshear left little doubt he’ll be analyzing the Fletcher administration’s performance that he said has been dismal, and the 18-month investigation of his administration’s hiring practices that resulted in 29 indictments against Fletcher and his appointees.

The general election is Nov. 6.

The two were joined by most of the state’s other top politicians for the traditional kickoff for the fall elections. The political speaking — almost as popular as the 10 tons of barbecue that was served — lasted more than two hours.

Even though temperatures soared near 100 degrees, it was the largest crowd in at least four years as more than 3,500 people gathered around the speaking platform. By the end of the day, more than 10,000 people had visited the picnic grounds for the fundraising sponsored by St. Jerome Catholic Church.

The political crowd was divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats. Although there was some heckling, cheering and chanting, the crowd for the most part was well behaved. None of the speakers were interrupted to the extent that it prevented their messages from being heard.

Fletcher pounded Beshear for his promotion of casino gambling as a means of balancing the budget, expanding educational opportunities and funding new programs, and for his action as attorney general 26 years ago in ordering that the Ten Commandments be removed from school classrooms and public buildings.

He also said that as attorney general, Beshear was not a strong advocate for the rights of gun owners and supported some gun controls. “You’ll need a really big sling shot if you are going to bag a deer under the Steve Beshear regime,” Fletcher said.

Fletcher said legalizing casino gambling would lead to broken families, addiction, divorce and senior citizens gambling away their life savings.

He said Beshear has estimated $1.5 billion annually would be spent on casinos in Kentucky.

“That’s $1.5 million that won’t be spent in local restaurants and stores … and taken out of the local economy,” he said. He said $1 billion would be corporate profits that would be sent to casino companies in Las Vegas.

“‘Easy Money Steve’ offers you nothing but a grand scheme to fund all of his false promises,” Fletcher said.

Beshear loaded his own verbal rifle and aimed criticism at Fletcher, who in 2003 became the state’s first Republican governor in 32 years. He said that since Fletcher took office, the state has fallen further behind the rest of the nation in several economic performance categories.

In his most stinging comment, he said under Fletcher’s leadership the state has had “more indictments, more pardons and more times that the governor has taken the 5th Amendment … than any other state in this country.”

That was a reference to the investigation of the Fletcher administration’s hiring practices. Although 29 indictments were returned, no trials were held because of a blanket pardon order by Fletcher for everyone but himself.

The governor also was indicted but his misdemeanor charges were dismissed as part of an agreement with Attorney General Greg Stumbo.

Fletcher said the investigation was politically motivated. He quipped that he was glad that Stumbo could be at Fancy Farm “after teaching at the Mike Nifong political witch hunt school.”

Nifong was the North Carolina prosecutor who charged members of the Duke University lacrosse team with rape. Nifong was disbarred after it was determined the charges were unfounded.

Beshear launched a strong defense of his support of a referendum to allow limited gambling at race tracks and a few other locations. He said Fletcher overemphasizes problems that would be caused by allowing casinos, such as crime problems that plague Las Vegas.

“They have casinos across the river in Illinois, Indiana and West Virginia,” Beshear said. “Do they look like Las Vegas?”

Beshear said Kentuckians are already spending millions at casinos in neighboring states. He said if that money was being spent at Kentucky casinos, it would raise state revenue to fund schools, roads and health care.

Beshear also defended his order as attorney general in 1981 to remove the Ten Commandments from schools and public buildings. He said he was only following a legal ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I obeyed he law,” he said. “As governor I’ll obey the law, too. And wouldn’t that be a great change if we had a governor who would obey the law for a change?”

Regarding the Ten Commandments, he said, “It is not so important where you hang them, but it is important that you live by them. If this administration had been living by them, they wouldn’t be in the mess they’re in now.”

The Fletcher campaign, meanwhile, used props and gimmicks to make its points. A float portraying “Beshearville” was parked behind the speaker’s platform. It showed a payday lending business, a casino, boarded up family businesses and a sign depicting a declining population.

It also had people in the crowd to help Fletcher make his points. When he talked about the removal of the Ten Commandments, someone appeared dressed as Moses; when he talked about the grand jury investigation being a witch hunt, a woman dressed as a witch appeared, and when he talked about gambling someone dressed in a plaid suit appeared to depict a hotshot gambler.

The two gubernatorial candidates also got help from other party leaders who spoke.

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell used his five minutes to support Fletcher and attack Beshear, while Stumbo used his allotted time to attack Fletcher.

All staff photographs are available for purchase.
Please call 270-575-8682 or 270-575-8683.

* Using this feature as a means to send unwanted emails (SPAM) to people is not permitted. Online subscriptions will be cancelled if this service is misused