Below is a Youtube play list of David Boswell and Reid Haire.
Both videos are on the player below.
Special thanks to Ed. Marksberry.

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Video of KY-2 Democratic candidates Reid Haire and David Boswell is now available online. Thoughts? A Ron Lewis/Brett Guthrie supporter was recently accused of cybersquatting a Reid Haire-linked domain, so look for this to be a very exciting campaign in the fall, whoever wins the primary. (h/t: BlueGrassRoots diarist CoolerKing)

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Ron Lewis won’t be running for reelection in KY-2. Reid Haire will join David Boswell in the Democratic primary for the seat.

Bruce Lunsford is in, joining a ton of Democrats who want to DITCH MITCH!

(h/t: PolWatchers, who will continue to have coverage on today’s filings.)

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Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer’s Owen Covington reports the following (no link; subscription only):

When state Sen. David Boswell wanted to test the waters this summer for a possible run for Congress, he distributed 1,000 bumper stickers with “Boswell ‘08″ around Kentucky’s 2nd District.

Boswell, a Sorgho Democrat who serves in the Kentucky Senate, was looking to “kick up the dust,” and some of the stickers made their way to bumpers as voters voiced their support for his potential candidacy.

…

But in recent weeks, “Boswell ‘08″ bumper stickers of a different breed have been appearing in Daviess County.

Yellow and black stickers containing eight different messages questioning Boswell’s possible candidacy have been sent by mail to local elected officials, business leaders and the Messenger-Inquirer.

The bumper stickers have arrived in a plain white envelope with no return address and no indication from where or by whom they have been sent.

The mock campaign stickers peg Boswell as a frequent candidate for different offices despite the fact Boswell has not run for any other office since joining the state Senate in 1991.

…

Boswell said he has not seen the bumper stickers but has heard about them and has decided that someone must be trying to scare him away from running for Congress next year.

“That is an underhanded campaign tactic,” Boswell said. “Apparently someone’s afraid of what I’m looking at doing here.”

…

If Boswell puts his hat in the ring with a congressional run next spring, he would be challenging incumbent U.S. Rep. Ron Lewis, a Cecilia Republican first elected to Congress in 1994.

Daniel London, the congressman’s chief of staff, said Lewis had nothing to do with the bumper stickers being made or circulated but had heard about them.

The Kentucky Republican Party is not behind the bumper stickers, according to state party President Steve Robertson, who said he hadn’t heard about the stickers until he was contacted by a reporter.

Joe Lowe, chairman of the Daviess County Republican Party, also said the stickers were not produced or distributed by the county party.

The fact that the stickers were sent without any indication of who sent them or where they were coming from makes it “kind of a chicken way to do things,” Lowe said.

…

The stickers appear to have been sent primarily to Daviess County residents, but Jeremy Edge, an Owensboro resident who is active in Democratic politics, said he had heard they were sent to people in Bowling Green, too.

Seriously. Don’t people have better things to do, like pass notes in study hall or something?

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The Most Reverend Congressman Ron Lewis has an opponent and David Boswell is his name. I’m looking forward to Reverend Ron telling us; when he will debate David Boswell, more about George Reuthebuck, if he was ever arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, why he voted against SCHIP, when he will invite Dick Cheney come to Kentucky to raise money for him, how many terms he will run, what kind of Mercedes he will ride around in, why he voted for the drug companies and against senior citizens, why he voted against the minimum wage increase, how much he will pay Kayi to run his campaign, if he is a Southern Baptist, what he has done to lower the national debt, how many jobs he wants to send to Mexico or Communist China, why he wants better health care insurance, for himself and his family, than the rest of us have or can afford and when will he vote for another give away trade agreement like CAFTA?
Hells Bells I could go on forever.
This race between David Boswell and “girly man Ron” is going to be more fun than delivering diapers to David Vitter.

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Matt mentioned this back in April, and Ryan Alessi confirms:

Democratic State Sen. David Boswell of Owensboro said he is planning a press conference “in the very, very near future” to officially announce his candidacy to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. Ron Lewis of Cecilia.

“I do plan to run for the U.S. Congress in the 2nd District,” Boswell said yesterday. “I think people, overall, are ready for change. They’re ready for a new guard.”

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Oh-ho-ho. Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer’s Owen Covington reports the following (no link; subscription only):

State senator prefiles partial birth abortion bill

[…]

Sen. David Boswell has prefiled a bill making partial-birth abortions illegal, mirroring legislation he sponsored and that was signed into law in 1998 only to be ruled unenforceable by the federal courts.

Boswell modeled his bill, which will be considered when the legislature convenes in January, after the federal ban.

“That sparked, in my judgment, the need to introduce and pass the bill again,” said Boswell, a Sorgho Democrat who represents Daviess and McLean counties.

Abortions rights advocates dubbed the measure a publicity stunt meant to further attempts to ban all abortions in the state and the country.

[…]

Under the legislation sponsored by Boswell, a doctor who performs a partial birth abortion would be guilty of a Class D felony punishable by up to five years in prison. The federal ban only carries with it a prison sentence of up to two years.

[…]

Boswell’s bill would allow a woman’s husband or her parents to file a civil lawsuit for damages against a doctor who performs a partial birth abortion.

“This is a pretty brutal abortion procedure,” Boswell said. “Even Sen. Ted Kennedy and other very liberal members of Congress supported a partial birth abortion ban.”
[…]

Any legislation criminalizing the procedure would likely have to clear the House Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Kathy Stein, a Lexington Democrat and outspoken women’s rights advocate.

Stein said she was preparing for how to handle any proposals to enact a state ban during the next legislative session.

“It’s unfortunate that here in Kentucky we feel the need to criminalize doctors who use their best efforts to try to protect the health of women,” Stein said. “We need to find ways to make the law less onerous. The Supreme Court ruling this year has changed things significantly.”

Because, you know, a woman is the fricking property of her husband or parents and not a real human, like a fetus is.

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This article from the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer’s David Blackburn (no link; subscription only) evidences the squeeze that Bush-administration inflation is putting on Kentucky’s poor, elderly, and working class. I’ve started noticing an across the board rise in prices at my local food shops in Connecticut. It had been isolated to a few specific products for a time, but now it’s everything. Blackburn’s piece ran on the front page, and directly below it was one from Ellen Simon of the Associated Press on skyrocketing pay for corporate CEOs, whose compensation among S&P500 companies averages $8.3million.

Cut in food stamps puts squeeze on recipients

Increases in other payments lead to less money allocated to spend on groceries

Sherry Wolf is among those getting state nutrition assistance benefits who are trying to buy increasingly costly food with less aid.

Wolf received a $22 cost-of-living increase in her federal disability payments in January.

But that good news was short-lived. Because of the increase in her disability payments, her income-based state benefits, better known as food stamps, were cut by $33 a month.

And on June 1, the state’s annual standard utility allowance that determines food benefits changed, lowering her benefits another $12 a month.

That leaves the 56-year-old former nurse and Army veteran on East 22nd Street with a net monthly reduction of $23 in food and disability benefits.

It’s a seemingly small amount except that she is trying to live on a fixed income amid rising gas, food, insurance and other costs.

In addition to regular expenses, Wolf, who receives Medicare and Medicaid, has some expenses related to her depression, fibromyalgia and degenerative discs in her back.

She is supposed to see a specialist in Paducah for her back every two to three months.

“I should move it up, but I can’t afford to,” said a frustrated Wolf, who faces using some of her disability benefits to buy food or borrowing money.

Wolf has sought help from the governor, state legislators and the Salvation Army, Audubon Area Community Services and the Help Office of Owensboro.

And Wolf’s story is not an isolated one.

The Help Office, which provides emergency aid, has seen an influx of people like Wolf in the last two weeks, Executive Director Sharon Sharp said.

“The ones on the fixed incomes are going to be the ones coming to us, and that population is growing,” Sharp said. “The elderly and disabled have no cushion.

“The problem is your food costs have gone up and are going to continue to rise.”

“It’s a severe problem,” said state Sen. David Boswell, a Sorgho Democrat whom Wolf has contacted looking for answers and help.

Boswell is unsure if the problem is a lack of coordination between state and federal governments or if it’s a federal attempt to push aid responsibilities onto states.

The cause may just be bad luck and worse timing.

Each year, the state recalculates the standard utility allowance that food benefit recipients can deduct from their income, which affects how much aid they can get.

The allowance changes every June 1, said Ricky May, manager of the state Department for Community Based Services’ nutrition assistance and accountability branch in Frankfort.

The 2006 amount of $325 was a “substantial increase” over the previous year’s $273, May said.

That’s because the state’s average utility expenses used to determine the allowance were based for the first time on data from the national Consumer Price Index, May said.

The average expenses usually were based on Kentucky average utility expenses from previous years, he said.

The national data showed a 17 percent increase in utility expenses, so the state increased benefits accordingly, May said.

This year, the national index showed a 2.2 percent decrease in fuel and utilities costs, which would have dropped the deduction to $278, he said.

Instead, the state again used Kentucky utility costs, which determined the current allowance of $287 — or just $14 more than the 2005 level, but $38 less than in 2006.

“We didn’t use it (the national index) this year because it would have been a bigger decrease,” May said. “One year, it was a great benefit for recipients by us using it.”

In other words, it could have been worse, he said.

May said he has received a flurry of calls and e-mails about the lowered deduction.

People usually understand after he explains the reason to them, May said.

Understanding it doesn’t create a solution, though.

Boswell thinks the state needs to find a new means of generating revenue, including overhauling its tax code. But he doesn’t know what immediate fixes are available.

“We just have to do what we can to be sure the needs of our people are taken care of,” Boswell said.

Meanwhile, Wolf, who once held two jobs to get by, is trying to figure out how to get her yard mowed — a task she once paid to have done.

“This year, I can’t afford to pay anyone,” she said.

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The Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer’s Keith Lawrence reports today [the M-I is subscription only, so no link] that state Senator and former state Commissioner of Agriculture David Boswell is considering a 2008 run against Congressman Ron Lewis, who is the “cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” member of Kentucky’s Republican congressional delegation (and there’s some stiff competition for that title, especially if you throw dementia-suffering Senator Jim Bunning in the mix).

Lewis has the intellect and personality of a brick, so he’s just the sort of sycophant that Senator Mitch McConnell admires and finds most useful. If Mitch McConnell says jump, Ron Lewis asks over which cliff. For instance, to show you how subservient Lewis is to McConnell, consider that Ron Lewis, who is about as proud a bigoted, sexist, homophobic, anti-science politician as they come, endorsed the pro-gay rights, pro-abortion rights, pro-gun regulation Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney because Mitch McConnell told him to. McConnell absolutely hates Senator John McCain and will do anything it take to deny him the Republican presidential nomination.

Boswell would make for a strong candidate. He’s won statewide office before, and he’s taken some tough and progressive stands against a generally regressive majority in the state senate. He’s also, from my experience, a friendly man and a tough and excellent campaigner. In 2002, Mitch McConnell’s Republican smear machine went full force after Boswell, who himself insisted on running a clean and positive campaign. Boswell won reelection by a wide margin.

Kentucky’s Second Congressional District is a tough nut to crack, however; it’s home to three dispersed and very different metro areas: Owensboro, Bowling Green, and Elizabethtown, and is thus in the Evansville, Nashville, and Louisville television markets.

Here’s Lawrence’s article:

Boswell taking ’serious look’ at run for Congress in 2008

State Sen. David Boswell hasn’t thrown his hat into the ring yet for a run for Congress next year.

But his hand is on the hat brim.

Boswell, a Sorgho Democrat, said U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, a Missouri Democrat, called him recently to talk to him about the race.

“I’m going to take a serious look at it,” he said.

U.S. Rep. Ron Lewis hadn’t faced serious competition from Democrats for a decade. But last year, he was challenged by state Rep. Mike Weaver, a Vietnam veteran and conservative Democrat.

Lewis won with 55 percent of the vote. But Democrats were encouraged that that was the smallest victory margin the Cecilia Republican had enjoyed since his first election in 1994.

Boswell said the fact that Democrats retook control of the House last fall gives him encouragement about the race.

He considered a race against Lewis in 2000, but decided against it.

Boswell served in the state House from 1978-83, then was agriculture commissioner from 1984-87. After working as a Frankfort lobbyist for a few years, he was elected in 1990 to replace the retiring Delbert Murphy in the state Senate.

He has held that post since 1990.

Boswell lost a race for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor in 1987. He considered running for governor this year or being the running mate of another candidate but decided against it.

He said he decided to talk publicly about a possible race for Congress to let him gauge public reaction.

And Jim Pence has this to add:

The “Most Reverend” Rep. Ron Lewis of Kentucky’s Second Congressional District with the “Most Toothless” Sen. Mitch McConnell.

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