Archive for the 'Fancy Farm 2007' Category

Moser: Kentucky at War

Matt Gunterman September 13th, 2007

The Nation Cover “Kentucky at War”

Bob Moser’s excellent analysis of the development of the movement to support the troops, end the war, and ditch Senator Mitch McConnell (R) has hit the stands.

The piece is too long to block quote here, but I’ll include excerpts particularly relevant to the Kentucky progressive blogosphere. You can read the entire article here.

Kentucky at War
Bob Moser

[...]

As summer–and McConnell’s recess vacation–approached, two new sets of nontraditional allies materialized to help LPAC bird-dog the senator, who makes his home in Louisville with his wife, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. Matt Gunterman, a 30-year-old rural Kentucky native and Yale University graduate student, launched the DitchMitch blog earlier in the year, bringing together a varied band of bloggers from around the state on a composite site with a common goal. And in June, two young native Kentuckians and a Navy veteran opened an Iraq Summer headquarters in Louisville, part of a national campaign by Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (AAEI) to target key members of Congress with a homegrown antiwar message before they returned to Washington to resume the war debate.

By mid-August McConnell was sending out fundraising letters complaining about being harassed by “the ’60s antiwar movement on steroids.” But as the Republican kingmaker well knew, the reality was something altogether different from that old stereotype–and considerably more formidable.

Jim Pence is a 68-year-old, Salem-smoking, pickup-driving, self-proclaimed hillbilly from economically devastated Hardin County, retired after thirty-five years in the factory at the American Synthetic Rubber Corporation. Politically inactive until 2004, when Bush’s re-election and the war in Iraq spurred him to “vow to fight with every ounce of my strength from then on,” Pence now makes some of the freshest, funniest antiwar and political videos anywhere–and as a result, he’s become the unlikely heart and soul of Kentucky’s DitchMitch campaign.

Linking from his own Hillbilly Report website to DitchMitch and YouTube, Pence puts up snappy vignettes on subjects ranging from Kentucky’s annual bipartisan political hoedown at Fancy Farm–where McConnell made a hasty exit this year after being jeered by protesters carrying signs showing him as Bush’s hand puppet–to a fanciful take on Bush and Condoleezza Rice’s relationship, set to the tune of Frank Sinatra’s “The Way You Look Tonight,” to a hard-hitting series of exposés of liquor-industry fundraising by Ron Lewis, the holy-rolling Congressman from Pence’s district. “I don’t know, I just disappear into them,” Pence says on a dog-day August morning, navigating Louisville traffic en route to the Iraq Summer office. “I stay up some nights till 4 and 5, editing these things.”

DitchMitch creator Gunterman, whose postgraduate goal is to fire up an Internet-based “Ruralution,” connecting grassroots progressives from rural America to spur political action, sees Pence as a prime example of the passion and wit that generally go untapped by Democrats and urban progressives. “There’s no one like Jim in the entire United States,” says Gunterman. “Not with his age and his ornery attitude. He is very much a hillbilly, and he’s reinvigorated the term.”

In his three years of crisscrossing Kentucky to publicize its antiwar and progressive insurgencies, Pence has also stirred up the state’s traditionally timid left-wingers. “When I first went out with my camcorder, I’d go up to people at peace rallies and ask them, ‘Would you like to say something to Mitch?’ and they’d just go, ‘Uhhh…’ Or even if they would say anything, they’d say, ‘But I don’t want my picture taken.’ I just kept saying, ‘The newspaper’s not even going to cover this, and if TV does, it’ll be for ten seconds. Whereas this video’s going up on YouTube tomorrow.’” As Pence kept filming and posting his increasingly popular videos, the activists opened up and embraced this new mechanism for showing that, yes, the military stronghold of Kentucky has a vigorous antiwar effort. “People are stepping out more than they would a few years ago,” Pence says. “Now I can’t get them to stop talking when they see that camera. People know me now, and for the most part they trust me–whether or not they should!”

While Pence and DitchMitch have inspirited Kentucky activists, they’ve also pushed the state’s more established media to take notice of the progressive groundswell. “DitchMitch gives us the power to hold the media accountable in Kentucky for the first time,” says 24-year-old Shawn Dixon, a native of rural western Kentucky who’s just started his first year at NYU law school. In 2004, when Dixon was working as deputy policy and communications director for Democrat Daniel Mongiardo’s uphill Senate challenge to Republican Jim Bunning, he spent much of the campaign in a state of frustration over Kentucky newspapers’ assumption that the incumbent would cruise to victory. “There was no recognition that this would be a competitive election and that this guy was beatable until about a month before the election, when it became impossible to ignore.” Bunning wobbled back to Washington with a slender 23,000-vote victory, but this time around, with LPAC continually raising eyebrows and DitchMitch helping to popularize the anti-McConnell movement, “the media don’t have a choice,” Dixon says. On the same day in late July that Louisville’s Courier-Journal ran a column about McConnell’s dip in popularity (below 50 percent approval), the Herald-Leader in Lexington ran a story, sixteen months before the election, titled “McConnell Vulnerable.”

That’s music to Pence’s ears. “It’s not just what he’s done to perpetuate this war,” says the high-tech hillbilly. “It’s what he hasn’t done for Kentuckians, with all his power, on healthcare and so many other issues that really matter to folks at their kitchen tables. We’re trying to cut through the kind of moral-values crap that McConnell’s been using for twenty-five years to get himself elected. We’re doing what we can to show the emperors without their clothes. And show that the folks who don’t like Mitch, and can’t stand this war, are just regular people like me who finally woke up and spoke up.”

[...]

Kentucky’s progressive community about to rock America

Matt Gunterman September 12th, 2007

Coming to a newsstand near you: The Nation with Bob Moser’s cover story entitled “Kentucky at War,” which examines Kentucky’s progressive grassroots community and how it’s reshaping the political and ideological landscapes of that state — and doing so outside the rigid, tepid, and unresponsive party structures.

It’s gonna be a hell of a read!

The Nation Cover “Kentucky at War”

Further Fancy Farm reflections

Matt Gunterman August 22nd, 2007

Louisville-area native Andrew Green writes on Fancy Farm 2007 for The American Prospect (posted in full below). It’s an excellent piece. Also, Green penned a touching oped for the Courier-Journal over the weekend where he recounted his conversation with his grandfather on the trip over to Graves County. Both are great reads.

Nipping at McConnell’s Heels

At Kentucky’s annual summer political picnic, there were signs that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell should be seriously worried about his ‘08 re-election bid.

Andrew Green | August 21, 2007

In 1984, during Mitch McConnell’s nascent run for the U.S. Senate against two-term Democrat Walter “Dee” Huddleston, McConnell gained considerable traction with an ad showing a pack of bloodhounds scouring the country for the incumbent. Huddleston had a reputation for being something of a senatorial non-entity with a penchant for missing roll call votes. McConnell rode the bloodhounds (and Ronald Reagan’s coattails) to the slightest of victories, setting him on the path to his current position as Senate minority leader.

Now it’s McConnell the bloodhounds are chasing.

When the minority leader showed up at the Aug. 4 Fancy Farm picnic in rural west Kentucky — the annual and unofficial launch of the commonwealth’s fall campaign season — there was a pack of dappled hounds, tails wagging, waiting for him. The man holding the dogs’ leashes, Kentucky Attorney General Greg Stumbo, is the first of many rumored Democrats (as well as a Republican or two) to announce he is exploring a run against McConnell in 2008. As Stumbo toured the picnic with the dogs, his volunteers handed out stickers that read, “Hunting for a real U.S. Senator.”

The stunt, which Stumbo later described to me as a bit of “good-natured fun,” highlighted McConnell’s increasing vulnerability. As more candidates emerge to challenge him, the attacks are likely to be a lot less good natured and lot less fun for the minority leader.

Nationally there has been a target on McConnell’s back ever since he was promoted to minority leader this year. He is, after all, one of President Bush’s chief cheerleaders in the Senate. And for Democrats, a McConnell defeat holds a certain allure, retribution for then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle’s loss in 2004.

Political vendettas notwithstanding, the real concern for McConnell and his supporters should be that his 2008 Senate race was already a prevalent issue at Fancy Farm. Kentucky is in the midst of a heated gubernatorial race, with Democrats eager to chase McConnell’s former protégé, Gov. Ernie Fletcher, out of the Governor’s Mansion in November. Yet partisans are campaigning almost as hard against McConnell as they are against Fletcher. Not only did they bring out the bloodhounds, but Fancy Farm was littered with stickers imploring people to “Ditch Mitch.” When McConnell got up to speak, he was booed so lustily and so often he ran out of time and had to cut his remarks short.

Being elevated to minority leader this year has not done McConnell any favors in his home state. Forced to frequently and publicly defend an unpopular president and his even less popular war, McConnell’s constituents have charged him with being out of touch with the political climate in Kentucky. During a July CNN appearance he insisted Kentuckians are “overwhelmingly” on the side of the current troop surge in Iraq. But the Louisville Courier-Journal was quick to point out that its February Bluegrass Poll showed 52 percent of Kentuckians wanted McConnell to oppose the surge. Only 40 percent thought he should support it.

McConnell has also gotten flack for his handling of the immigration bill earlier this summer. He ultimately voted against it — a sop to his Kentucky base — but he was largely absent from the debate preceding the vote, successfully angering both critics and proponents of the bill.

While McConnell is certainly more vulnerable now than at any time since taking office, his ability to fundraise and strategize means it’s risky to start drafting his political eulogy just yet.

“He’s one of the best [political strategists] Kentucky’s ever produced,” said Dr. Paul Blanchard, executive director of government relations for Eastern Kentucky University and a noted Kentucky political analyst. “I’ve had him in my classroom several times to explain political strategy. It’s textbook stuff.” Witness his campaign against Huddleston. McConnell was the only Republican that year to defeat a Democratic incumbent in a Senate race, even with Reagan’s landslide victory. He went on to orchestrate a Republican resurgence in Kentucky, where, despite its social conservatism, registered Democrats still outnumber Republicans three to two.

Additionally, McConnell is sitting on $5.9 million specifically for next year’s race, according to an April report from his re-election committee. By any measure he remains a formidable opponent.

To take his seat, Kentucky Democrats will need to succeed on two fronts: Trumpeting McConnell’s link to Bush generally and to the war specifically, while at the same time harnessing any momentum from this year’s state races to generate a sense of inevitability around a Democratic victory in 2008.

McConnell’s continued support for the war is clearly his biggest liability, with the potential to alienate many of his moderate supporters. A campaign called Iraq Summer, which was organized by a progressive coalition of independent organizations named Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, has targeted McConnell with a goal of binding him more closely to the war’s outcome. The campaign’s workers insist they’ve tapped into statewide discontent, which was evident at Fancy Farm where condemnation of the war managed to bridge the usually extreme partisan rift.

Any sensible McConnell opponent should take some cues from the Iraq Summer leaders, with the war as a lens on the minority leader’s overall failure to guide his party toward acceptable solutions on Iraq, immigration, or any of a host of issues making political hay across the commonwealth and the nation. It’s a charge even the noted campaign contortionist will find it difficult to duck.

The Democrats could also generate some momentum for 2008 with a historic victory in this year’s state elections. When Fletcher was elected in 2003, becoming the commonwealth’s first Republican governor in more than 30 years, it wasn’t a complete surprise. Voters were receptive to the Republican promises of change. What was surprising was the speed with which Fletcher managed to get himself embroiled in a scandal over hiring and firing state employees based on political affiliation. The merit-hiring scandal left him largely hamstrung over the last four years and makes him extremely vulnerable in 2008.

Victory isn’t guaranteed for the Democratic candidate, former Lt. Gov. Steve Beshear, but if he is elected in November it would mark not just a return to power for the Democrats, but the first time an incumbent governor has ever been voted out of office in Kentucky. Of course, until a 1992 constitutional amendment, governors weren’t allowed to serve consecutive terms, but veteran Kentucky political writer Al Cross suggests this historical first might still go a long way toward energizing the Democratic base.

“When you have an event like that, the ouster of a governor, a historic change in power, that’s the kind of thing that really gets Democrats’ blood moving,” he said. “They’re excited about being Democrats. About knocking off a big Republican.”

Maybe excited enough to knock off an even bigger Republican in 2008.

Despite the flurry of early activity, there are likely to be few additional developments in the race until after the gubernatorial elections. Democratic leaders say they don’t want to divert any energy or funds from Beshear’s election. Republicans are content to wait a while and see which way the political winds are blowing.

But the bloodhounds are out, and they’re already nipping at McConnell’s heels.

* * * * *
Andrew Green is a Prospect publishing fellow.

Al Cross: Divided Party Haunts Fletcher

Matt Gunterman August 12th, 2007

Al Cross, veteran political journalist and director of the UK’s Institute for Rural Journalism offers an outstanding post-Fancy Farm round up of the sorry political position of Governor Ernie Fletcher (R).

I’ve included the entire column below, but one of Cross’s best observations is that Fletcher and Senator Mitch McConnell (R) are trying to sell Kentuckians on the scary liberal bit, a favorite of McConnell’s, once again. The problem? It doesn’t have the salience it for the past generation? Why? Because conservatives are the scary ones now. They’re the ones bent on needless, endless, and fruitless war. They’re the ones allied with fundamentalist Christians out to purify the nation of anything they deem unfit in others (they ignore that log in their own eye, you know). They’re the ones who’ve spent the nation into trillions of dollars of more debt. They’re the ones who want to throw science out of the laboratory and our schools’ classrooms for the sake of their fairy tales. They’re the ones who’ve allowed our middle class to waste away for the sake of free markets that are anything but.

CONSERVATIVES ARE SCARY!

And, also, for the record, every blogger — both on the left and the right — who attended Fancy Farm and who went on record themselves agreed that, objectively, by some factor Democratic activists outnumbered Republican activists. The one person who disagreed with us was Bill Bartleman of the Paducah Sun, which is a paper almost entirely unread within the blogosphere because it’s subscription only (and a conservative rag, I might add). Bartleman said it was a 50/50 divide. The blogosphere called him on it, and his only response was that unnamed reporters also agreed with him.

Well, notice in the column below that Al Cross certainly doesn’t.


Divided party haunts Fletcher
Can hard-right issues turn tide?

FANCY FARM, Ky. — The political speaking at the Fancy Farm Picnic is not an educational exercise. It is rhetorical and theatrical, testing politicians’ mettle and wits more than their minds and ideas. But it can help you understand an election.

Last weekend, the Democrats in the raucous crowd didn’t lose a single shouting contest, as they clearly outnumbered Republicans. The turnout showed how Democratic partisans are unified and energized behind the gubernatorial candidacy of Steve Beshear, and how much ground Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher still has to make up in his own party.

The latest evidence: a Survey USA automated poll, taken Saturday through Monday, showing that most of the Republicans who voted for Anne Northup in the primary probably are for Beshear.

With such a weak and fractured party, Fletcher has to build a new base for this election. He is taking the only route available: social conservatism.

Beshear handed Fletcher a wedge issue by supporting casinos at horse-race tracks and up to four other sites. That plan won’t fit on a bumper sticker; Fletcher’s already does: “Say NO to Casinos.” In politics, simplicity can be a virtue. In a contest of ideas, those who frame the debate and keep it understandable usually win.

Beshear spent much time in his picnic speech defending his plan, continuing Fletcher’s control of the “free media” or “earned media” phase of the race, abetted by wrangling over the special legislative session. Democrats got so antsy about the media angle that Mark Nickolas revived his BluegrassReport.org political blog.

But the anti-casino argument, from a governor who once said he wouldn’t oppose a referendum on the issue, seems unlikely to trump the ingrained, negative opinions voters have about him — in a state where horses are now the main agricultural product and $1 billion a year goes to other states’ casinos.

Fletcher says Beshear’s plan makes the election a referendum on the issue, but that’s an incomplete strategy for victory. When voters approved a lottery in 1988, only 17 of the 120 counties voted against it. That’s about as many as Fletcher would carry with such a limited message.

So, gambling and Fletcher’s exaggerations of its evils are just the point of entry for a broader argument aimed at socially conservative Democrats — that Beshear is a liberal pushed by “liberal media,” a construction often used by Sen. Mitch McConnell, whose handiwork is apparent in the campaign.

In his picnic speech, Fletcher didn’t mention abortion (perhaps because folks who vote on that issue are pretty well informed about candidates’ stands on it) or Democrats’ special-session bugaboo, domestic-partner benefits at universities. He did mention the potent issues of guns and the Ten Commandments, complete with theatrical props, but on both violated the commandment against bearing false witness.

“If he had his way, local communities could take away your guns,” Fletcher said. His campaign said that referred to Beshear’s opinion as attorney general that Louisville could impose a waiting period to buy a handgun. The facts fail to support the charge.

Fletcher said we won’t find the commandments in schools and courthouses because Beshear said they had to go. Wrong again. The Supreme Court said that, and Beshear said (in a case only about schools) the Court had to be obeyed.

If Fletcher gets his facts straight, such arguments may shore up his GOP base, but he will remain a tough sell in the other party. Still, socially conservative Democrats could be persuaded to stay home, making the election more competitive. And the X Factor is Fletcher’s four-year incumbency, something never truly tested in Kentucky. But the national winds are blowing against Republicans, and the fall looks Democratic.

Reflections on the latest gubernatorial race poll

Matt Gunterman August 8th, 2007

Most of you are already likely aware of the latest poll out in the Kentucky governor’s race. If not, check out WHAS political reporter Mark Hebert’s post and analysis. In short, Beshear leads by 21 points three months outside the election.

By now, with all the open talk of how Governor Ernie Fletcher (R) is receiving political life support from Senator Mitch McConnell (R), it’s quite apparent that Mitch was the father of the idea to use the expanded gaming and casino issue as a political wedge in the November election.

And it’s clear that it’s not working. I personally don’t know that McConnell ever thought it would work. Perhaps he was just working with what he had, and in Ernie Fletcher and his dumbass goon of a runningmate Robbie Rudolph there’s not much to really mold and work with.

Sure, McConnell and company can ramp up the rhetoric a bit and expand their campaign against it to television and radio and whatnot, but if that sort of strategy were going to make a difference and tip the balance, we’d have already seen some movement in the polls on the issue.

Why isn’t it working? First, the majority of Kentucky’s population lives within a short distance of a casino in other states. Second, those Kentuckians have seen that those casinos have not brought the social and economic doom and gloom that McConnell and Fletcher claim (I, for one, can say that downtown Evansville, Indiana is MUCH better off with a casino than it was without one). Third, Kentuckians have had more than a decade’s experience with state-sanctioned gambling in the lottery; they’ve acclimated to it.

The dynamics of Kentucky politics are shifting and McConnell’s old tricks aren’t working. For instance, do you actually believe that McConnell anticipated that when he dropped the names of Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi at Fancy Farm last weekend in a derogatory sense that the two women would receive a roaring endorsement and standing ovation from the heavily Democratic crowd? Democrats are proud to be Democrats again. That sort of energy is bad for McConnell.

The real question in my mind is what’s McConnell’s Plan B? Because Plan A is a non-starter. He’s got three months to change the conversation. The current conversation, which he started and which has dominated the campaign is going nowhere. What to do? What to do?

Alessi offers most astute Fancy Farm coverage

Matt Gunterman August 6th, 2007

In today’s installment of his column Political Notebook, the Herald-Leader’s Ryan Alessi offers what in my opinion has thus far been the most astute coverage to come out of the MSM.

He very accurately notes that the Republicans are suffering on two fronts in this campaign: lack of unity and lack of leadership.

On unity, let’s compare the Democrats with the Republicans. First, the centerpiece of the Democratic party camp site featured a giant banner that had all the candidates’ names on it, and every candidate had a team of people in the area handing out stickers and literature. The Republican party camp site, on the other hand — which was right next door to the Democrats — was almost exclusively graced with Fletcher signs. There were no visual signs of unity for the Republicans.

Second, every Democratic candidate stayed on the stage until the end of the event when all the speeches were done. Senator Mitch McConnell (R) was first to bail on the Republicans; he got out of dodge as soon as possible. Governor Ernie Fletcher similarly abandoned ship soon after he was done speaking. Fletcher also, according to Alessi, had no comment on his runningmate’s churlish and humiliating performance. Seriously, folks, it was so bad, I’m sure even the Republicans were having second thoughts about putting this joker Robbie Rudolph in office.

Third, the Republican supporters of the various candidates didn’t even stand together. The Fletcher support was centered in the traditionally Republican corner. The Trey Grayson troop of bigots and homophobes stayed in the back with the labor union guys and gals (skinny little young Republicans that they largely were, they also got bumped around quite a bit by the far more fit and muscular men and women with organized labor. Representative Stan Lee (R) had no support aside from what he brought with him. He had no signs and only a few more stickers. No-one wants to touch the crazy fundamentalist Christian or his “The End Is Near” campaign for attorney general. Agricultural Commissioner Richie Farmer (R) stayed away from the whole mess. He’s quite possible the only Republican who will win reelection this November.

The lack of leadership level runs several layers deep. Senator Mitch McConnell is gradually failing as Senate Minority Leader. He has small victories here and there, but the general trend is that he’s alienating his #2 Trent Lott and his caucus because he’s unable to provide them leadership now that the thing most occupying his mind and his energies is his own political survival.

Alessi offers the most stunning example of Fletcher’s failed leadership in the article below. Richie Farmer is taking the lead on rural health care. Our Republican-led state government is that disfunctional, ladies and gentlemen: the agricultural commissioner is having to bear the burden of addressing pressing issues because the other Republicans are simply too consumed with political calculation for their own survival.

The end result: there is little enthusiasm on among Kentucky Republicans leading into the November election. Fancy Farm was a chance to get themselves pumped up, but it only proved to them very evidently how divided and outnumbered they are.

Mitch McConnell makes the comment in Alessi’s piece that the Republicans were better organized. It’s true, but only because it’s much easier to organize a few hundred Republican activists versus a few thousand Democrats.

Fletcher-McConnell: Next phase
By Ryan Alessi

MAYFIELD –A subplot to watch during this fall’s campaign will be how the patchwork relationship between Gov. Ernie Fletcher and U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell holds up.

Much is at stake for both Kentucky Republican officials. Fletcher is seeking another four-year term. And McConnell, who is up for re-election next year, risks facing a more powerful, strongly backed Democratic opponent in 2008 if that party takes control of the governor’s office.

In public, McConnell and Fletcher shrug off suggestions that animosity or frustration exists between them.

“Mitch is campaigning with us. We’re glad to have his help,” Fletcher said in a manner-of-fact tone Saturday after the Graves County Republican breakfast in Mayfield.

When pressed on what McConnell’s role will be in the campaign, Fletcher gave few details. He acknowledged that he would take advice from the state’s senior U.S. senator but quickly added that he talks “to all of the federal delegation quite a bit.”

On the topic of whether McConnell — a famously prolific fund-raiser — will be spearheading efforts to collect bucket loads of national donations, Fletcher was equally vague.

“I’d welcome any help that anyone can give with raising money,” the governor said. “I’m sure he will.”

Fletcher noted that McConnell introduced him during a July 17 fund-raising event for the Republican Governors’ Association in Washington, which Fletcher said brought in “several hundred thousand dollars.”

The RGA is expected to buy TV advertisements for Fletcher this fall. Fletcher didn’t mention that McConnell is hosting two major fund-raisers for him in Lexington and Louisville this month. The invitations announce him as the “special guest,” before listing dozens of co-sponsors who already have pledged $1,000 checks.

Among the 135 names on the list for the Aug. 28 event at the Lexington home of Dr. Russell and Jill Travis is Larry Forgy, a former GOP gubernatorial candidate and ardent Fletcher supporter who has criticized McConnell for not sticking up for the governor.

Forgy, who hasn’t ruled out challenging McConnell in a primary next spring, said he’s waiting to see what McConnell will do to promote Fletcher this fall, especially in the senator’s hometown.

“He can be very helpful in Louisville,” Forgy said.

In Louisville, 107 sponsors have signed up for the Aug. 23 event at the home of businessman Todd Blue.

McConnell arrived late to Fancy Farm on Saturday after a hectic and exhausting finish of business in the U.S. Senate last week. He took a few sharp jabs at Fletcher’s Democratic opponent, Steve Beshear, whom he beat handily in the 1996 Senate race.

But McConnell gave a less inspired speech than he had at previous Fancy Farm picnics, partly because he allowed the fired-up crowd to interrupt him often.

After the speeches, the senator offered a pro-Fletcher assessment of the day. “The crowd was better organized on the governor’s side. I think this is an extremely sharp operation,” he said.

McConnell spent much of 2005 and 2006 avoiding talking about Fletcher as the governor’s political troubles boiled over. Although the investigation into improper state hirings led to indictments, including three misdemeanor charges against Fletcher, McConnell’s comments to reporters were little more than the obvious: that Fletcher was going through hard times.

McConnell stayed out of the spring’s GOP primary, saying only that he would support the eventual nominee. The senator and his camp didn’t offer any hints that they were behind Fletcher the way they did during the 2003 primary.

Beshear chose to highlight the on-again, off-again McConnell-Fletcher relationship as the opening line of his Fancy Farm remarks.

“It only took you a year, but I’m glad you finally remembered Ernie’s name,” Beshear said to McConnell.

Difference in opinions

Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer is forming a rural health care committee to look at the availability of medical treatment and insurance in smaller Kentucky communities.

“We know there are some projects already out there,” Farmer said. “What we want to do is take advantage of that and see what is working and what will work” in rural Kentucky.

Dr. Kevin Kavanagh, a Somerset physician and chairman of the Republican Party in Pulaski County, said policies to help increase health coverage outside of the bigger cities are crucial. He said he’s been disappointed in the lack of emphasis state officials — including Fletcher, who is a doctor — have put on it.

The Fletcher administration’s strides in health care have mostly come through restructuring Medicaid and stemming its financial bleeding, passing a pilot program to encourage small businesses to provide workers with insurance.

But Kavanagh said he’s frustrated that the administration has tightened regulations to make it more difficult for new hospitals to be built and hasn’t been receptive to critics and whistle blowers inside the public health system.

For those reasons, Kavanagh said, he’s stepping down this week as Pulaski County GOP chairman.

“I don’t feel I can adequately lead the party to champion his re-election,” he said.

He then suggested that Fletcher could learn from Farmer, a former University of Kentucky basketball guard.

“That is a testament to how bad the governor is doing in health care when the agriculture commissioner has to form an ad hoc committee,” he said.

More Picnicking in Western Kentucky

Terri Whitehouse August 6th, 2007

If you didn’t get your fill of delicious food and fiery political conversation at Fancy Farm, there’s still a chance to belly-up at O’bryan’s in West Louisville, KY. O’bryan’s is playing host to the second annual Red, White, & Blue Picnic, the successor to the picnic formerly held at Red’s in Sorgho.

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

For decades, politicians followed up a weekend at Fancy Farm in western Kentucky with a stop at Red’s Fish House of the South in Sorgho, where Thomas “Red” Saltsman hosted a political picnic with free food and speeches.

O’Bryan’s owner Jamie Murphy estimated that the first year of the Red, White & Blue picnic drew about 900 people with candidates for U.S. Congress as well as state and local office taking their turns on stage.

[…]

O’Bryan’s will be cooking more than 400 chickens to provide the free dinner for the event, which is sponsored by the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce and the Daviess County Democratic and Republican parties.

[...]

This year features all state constitutional offices on the ballot, with a contested gubernatorial battle between incumbent Ernie Fletcher, a Republican, and Democratic challenger Steve Beshear.

Fletcher has said he will be in West Louisville for today’s event, and Beshear running mate Dan Mongiardo of Hazard, who currently serves in the state Senate, will represent the Beshear camp, according to the chamber.

As some know, Red’s hosted its own picnic for nearly 50 years, the last one being held in 2004. Owner Red Saltsman died in 2005, and the restaurant closed in 2006. Red’s place was sold earlier this year. With 900 people showing for the Red, White, & Blue Picnic’s inaugural year, O’Bryan’s seems poised to be every bit as treasured as its predecessor.

Thoughts on Fancy Farm

Matt Gunterman August 5th, 2007

First, commenter Phantom Scribe on my previous post notes that Bill Bartleman in Sunday’s Paducah Sun is claiming that the crowd at Fancy Farm was evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. If Bartleman is indeed claiming that (and the Sun is subscription only, so not link), that’s not only disingenuous, but a lie. Shawn below puts the number at conservatively 4 to 1, and I’d say it was 5 to 1, but even the conservative blogosphere is saying it was 3 to 1. Commenter Isaac Shelby on Shawn’s post has this to say.

I checked the conservative blogs to see what estimates they had for the crowd. Elendil’s Journal had this to say, “03:35:28 PM David Williams is being introduced as masters of ceremony.. Lots of cheers and boos. The Republicans are outnumbered 3 to 1 but they are holding their own.”

So, Bill, what’s up, if you’re so out of touch with the atmosphere and environment of Fancy Farm, how much stock should we put in your political analysis generally?

Second, further evidence that the Democratic presence was unprecedented for Fancy Farm: the Democratic party breakfast at Mayfield High School had a record attendance. Are you still sticking by your story, Bill?

Third, and this was Shawn’s observation at Fancy Farm and I’m highlighting because I think it was a good one: anti-war Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul had an impressive organization at Fancy Farm. In fact, the campaign to “Support Our Troops / End the War” was extremely popular at the event. I was amazed to see 60 year old men and women asking 25 year old activists for every pro-end-of-war sticker and sign they could provide. It truly was an amazing sight. I’ve been at Fancy Farms since 1992, and I’ve never witnessed such a motivated and activist crowd. That’s one of the biggest stories to come out of Fancy Farm this year, quite frankly: even in rural Kentucky, the movement to end Bush’s endless and futile war is gaining in momentum. Senator Mitch McConnell was visibly shaken in his speech by the response.

Fourth, what was the worst speech, in my opinion, of the event? Robbie Rudolph, who really showed that he lacks all education and refinement. It was embarrassing. If indicted Governor Ernie Fletcher didn’t have all the baggage and scandal he does, he’d still deserve to lose the election simply because there’s no way that a man so stupid and redneck-ish should be a heartbeat away from the highest office in the land. What was the strangest speech? Republican attorney general candidate Representative Stan Lee who declared to Democrats that they should, “Fear the ’stache!” (for those of you unfamiliar with Lee’s appearance, he’s a fundamentalist Christian who looks like a 1970’s porn star). He just gave Democrats a GREAT t-shirt with that comment. We should fear the ’stache, indeed, because he’s loony.

Fifth, it was really, really great to meet so many of you and put faces and real names to commenter handles and people I’ve been working with for quite some time now. For instance, Jim Pence and I had never met in person until this weekend. Shawn met Cliff Schecter and Joe Sonka at YearlyKos this weekend, and I’ve yet to meet either Cliff or Joe. Shawn and I, of course, get together with some frequency since we’re both in the greater NYC area. I haven’t met Terri yet, either.

PS: The Kentucky Women blog has excellent Fancy Farm coverage and content, too.

Weather Is Beautiful. Wish You Were Here.

Terri Whitehouse August 4th, 2007

Saturday’s Courier-Journal offered a great preview to the goings-on at Fancy Farm.

Commenter kilowat1946 was kind enough to offer a brief report for those of us who couldn’t make it:

    it was hot
    Republicans were outnumbered ~20 to 1
    Reception to Sen. Mitch McConnell included lots of booing
    Attorney General Greg Stumbo did, indeed, have the bloodhounds

He also left a link to photos of the event, which can be found here. Thanks for sharing these!

A quick Friday night Fancy Farm update

Matt Gunterman August 3rd, 2007

Wow! What a great Fancy Farm experience so far! Jim and I are back at the hotel after a long afternoon of eating, schmoozing, and observing.

Here’s the word we’re hearing so far:

1. Senator Mitch McConnell (R) is doing everything he can to get out of showing up tomorrow to speak. Word on the street is that he won’t be here because he knows there’s going to be tons of anti-war protesters, even more fired-up Dems, and the good possibility that if he speaks he will have a “Macaca” moment, and Jim “The Hillbilly” Pence will be here to record it. If Mitch doesn’t show tomorrow, you can bet that Larry Forgy (R) won’t be fooled. Much ink has been spilled over how McConnell was going to campaign for Fletcher this August during the congressional recess, but the ONLY scheduled event they were going to be together at was Fancy Farm. It will be a huge blow to Republican spirits if the man doesn’t show, and it will only be exacerbating the wounds between the Fletcher/Forgy/Nunn wing of the party and McConnell.

2. Secretary of State Trey Grayson (R) is actively distancing himself from the hate-spewing and bigotry-driven “social” agenda (can we rightly say they’re waging a “socialist” campaign?) of Representative Stan Lee (R), who’s the GOP’s candidate for attorney general, and Governor Ernie Fletcher (R). In fact, if you look at the Democratic camp at Fancy Farm, it has a GIANT banner with all the Democratic candidates’ names on it. If you look at the Republican camp, there are only individual tiny signs, and all but one is a Fletcher sign. Stan Lee has no presence here. The Republicans have no unity. Good for Grayson that he’s finally taking a stand against his party’s devolution into quasi-fascism, but it may be a little too late to salvage his reelection campaign.

3. Veteran journalist and Kentucky institution Al Smith, the proudest liberal who ever was in the commonwealth and the one who will likely stay on the job long enough to see liberalism have come, gone, and come into style again, hosted his final Comment on Kentucky live from Fancy Farm tonight. Al is simply fantastic, and his influence on Kentucky political journalism is unquantifiable and certainly … unspeakable. His final Comment on Kentucky broadcast will be this November. No word yet over whether he plans to dress in drag this year for the Halloween installment of Comment.

4. We are happy to report that John David Dyche is still a putz and that Bill Goodman really is just as nice in person as he seems on TV. Also, we saw Mark Hebert hypnotize no fewer than three people in the span of twenty minutes with those Siberian husky-blue eyes of his. Stud muffin Ryan Alessi is in the area; we know because he blogged over at PolWatchers just a few minutes ago.

Senator Wendell Ford and Matt Gunterman

John David Dyche and Mark Hebert

John David Dyche and Mark Hebert

Bill Goodman and Matt Gunterman

Matt Gunterman & Al Smith

T.G.I.F.

Terri Whitehouse August 3rd, 2007

The DM-KY team has a jam-packed weekend, and while I won’t be attendance at Fancy Farm, my posting, too, will be sporadic. Don’t let that stop you from checking in, though, as I know that I am looking forward to hearing about YearlyKos and Fancy Farm from some of my favorite bloggers. (I’m not just saying that, I promise.)

To kick things off, check out Sam Youngman’s national coverage of Kentucky’s governor’s race and the impact it will have on the 2008 U.S. Senate campaign. I think all this interest will make for a very interesting picnic!

Team DitchMitchKY all over the Midwest this weekend

Matt Gunterman August 2nd, 2007

Yes, indeed, expect sporadic (but fun) posts this weekend as Team DitchMitchKY travels the Midwest.

Shawn, Cliff, and Joe are all at the YearlyKos conference this weekend, but Shawn will be catching the train from Chicago to western Kentucky (yes, Amtrak runs from Chicago to a cornfield in western Kentucky; take that Louisville!) so he can make the Fancy Farm festivities on Saturday. Jim and I will be trucking it across western Kentucky covering Fancy Farm and related events. Terri is holding the digital fort down in Louisville.

Many of you have sent me notices and press releases and whatnot the past week, but I’ve been taking my holiday rather seriously (I got two chapter drafts written in the past week in the peace and quiet). So, if your material didn’t get posted, I apologize.

Wish us luck! Jim and I have all sorts of ornery things planned. [insert sinister laugh]

Jim Bunning: Kentuckians “totally and completely out of control,” just like the Republican war in Iraq

Matt Gunterman July 24th, 2007

I have to say that I laughed when I read Larry Dale Keeling’s column today in the Herald-Leader on Senator Jim Bunning and his refusal to attend Fancy Farm now and forever because it’s just so gosh dern dangerous down there in western Kentucky.

Really. It’s sad. How can a person, especially a war-on-terror Republican ever imagine that he could win reelection, especially when his approval/disapproval rating is 44/45 percent, when he’s frightened of his own citizenry? Of course, they say that people suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s do get paranoid towards the end. And I don’t think anyone expects Bunning to have much chance at reelection, quite frankly.

Here’s the column:

Safe at Fancy Farm

The Fancy Farm Picnic is many things. It’s a pig-out on barbecue and fresh veggies and homemade desserts. It’s bingo and country music. It’s hot — really, really hot some years. It’s a Kentucky tradition. It’s great political theater spiced with old-fashioned speechifying before a crowd of partisans who can get, well, a little raucous at times.

But dangerous for the speakers?

I don’t think so.

However, U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning apparently does think so.

During a conference call with Kentucky reporters last week, Bunning said, “I’m not sure I’ll ever go back” to the picnic because of the abuse he claims his wife and he received there in 2004.

Complaining about a lack of security and the heckling of speakers, Bunning described the event as “totally and completely out of control.”

As I said, the crowds can be raucous. But “totally and completely out of control” is a gross overstatement of their behavior. Besides, the worst of the heckling often comes from people bused in for that purpose by the two political parties or the campaigns of politicians who are up for election in a given year.

In other words, the speakers can’t truly be described as innocent victims mistreated by mobs. They are part and parcel of a show that the speakers and their parties have helped orchestrate.

Still, I’m not surprised Bunning would find an excuse to avoid the hoi polloi at Fancy Farm. After all, he is the guy who used al-Qaida as an excuse to have state police protection during his last campaign and who insisted on rules for a televised debate that allowed him to participate from seclusion in Washington, D.C., rather than meet his opponent in front of TV cameras in Lexington.

Sounds like the guy who spent 17 years facing Major League batters now shies away from face-to-face confrontations with opponents and the public.

Hey, Democrats! I have a solution to the problem State Senator David Williams has with Fancy Farm

Matt Gunterman July 16th, 2007

As has been reported since the announcement that he would emcee the event (most recently by the Courier-Journal’s Joseph Gerth), State Senate President David Williams (R) has a problem with the Fancy Farm picnic: Republicans get heckled too much for his taste.

Senator David Williams: “I have all the hot air Fancy Farm needs in 2007″

Well, folks, I have a solution to David Williams’ dilemma.

My first Fancy Farm picnic was 1992 (I was 15 at the time), when soon-to-be Vice President Al Gore (D) landed dramatically by helicopter behind the platform (there was no shelter to block the sky — and elements — back then) and gave what I remember to be a rather rousing speech.

The only heckler at the entire event was a grotesquely fat Republican who perched himself on the bottom rung of one of the metal bleachers, and the only person he heckled was then Senator Wendell H. Ford (D) with the standard “Rusty old Ford” taunt, which he yelled ad nauseum.

Otherwise, Fancy Farm was rather peaceful and a little playful, to my memory: it was largely without Republicans or a Republican presence. It was a time when Democrats got together to celebrate all that they’d accomplished for Kentucky.

My next Fancy Farm was 1995 during the heated gubernatorial race between Paul Patton (D) and Larry Forgy (R) in the shadow of the “Republican Revolution” of 1994. The armies of Republican trolls (they would bus in militant, troglodyte Young Republicans) had flooded the place by then, and that was also the year — if you’ll recall — that freshman Congressman Ed Whitfield (R) physically assaulted a man in the audience. The Republicans were full of themselves, and they were violent.

How times have changed. Now that the Republicans have had the wind knocked out of their sails, they suddenly want everybody to play nice.

I have a suggestion: let’s return Fancy Farm to its happier, more productive times by removing the Republicans. Their presence in force was what started the whole mess that Williams is complaining about.

I doubt that the KY GOP will abandon the picnic voluntarily, so we’ll have to forcibly remove them: by voting them out at the ballot box.

PS: David, if you expect our side to behave at Fancy Farm, then you’ll have to make sure that miserable excuse of a human being and proud bigot Rep. Stan Lee (R) stays off the stage.