KyKurmudgeon

Fancy Farm update

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has confirmed that he will speak at the 128th Fancy Farm Picnic Aug. 2, according to Mark Wilson, chairman for the political portion of the event.

State Treasurer Todd Hollenbach, state Rep. Steven Rudy and his opponent for the 1st District House seat, Mike Lawrence, have also confirmed that they will speak since my July 9 post (below) on the subject.

Attorney General Jack Conway will attend, but will not speak. Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer will not be there due to an out-of-town wedding in the family.

No word yet from the two presidential candidates from the major parties, although Wilson indicated he expected a decision from Sen. Barack Obama within a few days.

Will D's '50-state strategy' include Kentucky?

Conventional wisdom holds that Kentucky is a "red state" and, because it is supposedly a lock for Republican Sen. John McCain, we won't see much of either candidate in the fall campaign. According to this line of thought, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama might fly into Louisville for a fund-raiser that adds a few million dollars to his campaign account. Then, we probably would never see him again. And McCain might make a few more stops than Obama, but not many more.

But the current Newsweekcontains an interesting article by Richard Wolffe describing Democratic plans for a "50-state strategy" designed to use Obama's money superiority to force McCain to play defense even in his stronghold states, while also helping Democratic congressional candidates in those states.

With first-term Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth (an early Obama supporter) facing a challenge from his predecessor Anne Northup in the 3rd Congressional District (where Obama should do well), Kentucky might be a good fit for the D's strategy of forcing McCain to play defense while helping out a congressional supporter. If it does, the state's political junkies could get more entertainment than we anticipated in the fall campaign.

A few quickies

Catching up on a few items:

1. For the first time in 20 years, there will not be a Bush or a Clinton at the top of a major party's' presidential ticket. The times really are a-changin', as Dylan might say.

2. Former Gov. Paul Patton deserves a seat on the Council on Postsecondary Education. He wrote the book on higher education reform in Kentucky, proposing the legislation enacted during a 1997 special session and using the force of his political will to overcome opposition from some entrenched higher education interests. He would be an excellent addition to a panel that has seen a bit of turmoil lately. His knowledge and insight might be particularly beneficial in evaluating applicants during the search for a new permanent president.

3. Former Gov. Ernie Fletcher added insult to injury when he chose Diversity Day in 2006 to sign an order removing a ban on discrimination due to sexual orientation that Patton had implemented in state government. Gov. Steve Beshear did the right thing Monday when he issued an executive order reinstating anti-discrimination protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender state workers. They deserve the same respect afforded to other employees.

4. It's too bad the state can't figure out a way to repo Education Commissioner John Draud's costly ride, the one pimped out with $13,000 worth of extras that he now remembers he did know about. But then, that's small change compared to the $448,997 low bid submitted for the next round of pimping out the Senate's digs. And that doesn't include the $400,000 in rent the state will pay to house the agencies kicked out of the Capitol Annex so none of our senators will have to suffer the indignity of being stuck in that "rather small office" Senate President David Williams mentioned recently.

Really? Can he cite a reference for that?

In response to New York Gov. David Paterson's decision to have state agencies recognize gay marriages performed where such unions are legal, the Associated Press quoted Richard E. Barnes, executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference, as saying, "The definition of marriage predates recorded history."

Don't you just love it when know-it-alls say such dumb things?

Turning Bluegrass State blue will be tough

Sunday's column:

FRANKFORT — A few days after the 2007 primary election, Democratic leaders staged a unity rally at the party’s state headquarters.

All the losing gubernatorial candidates showed up in a demonstration of support for the nominee, everyone made nice to each other, and Steve Beshear went on to an easy win over Republican incumbent Gov. Ernie Fletcher in the fall.

Friday, Kentucky Democrats staged another post-primary unity rally. Once again, it was a verbal hug-fest.

“Today, there are no differences,” said Greg Fischer, who ran second to Bruce Lunsford in a U.S. Senate primary that got a tad nasty at times. “Today, we’re all Democrats unified in one common purpose: to put a Democrat in the White House and to put a Democrat in the United States Senate.”

Lunsford responded in kind, saying Fischer “has a great future if he decides to stay in the game.”

Lunsford and party leaders outlined the case against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, which largely consists of being joined at the hip with President Bush during a period of time when the United States has made a handbasket visit to a very hot place.

It’s a message that should resonate with folks who are fed up with having American troops die in an ill-advised war and who have been battered financially by $4-per-gallon gas prices and a tanked economy that includes a lending crisis and a slump in the housing market.

And Lunsford has a gift for making the case against the man he calls “Sir Mitchell.”

At one point Friday, he flipped one of McConnell’s ads against him by noting that “someone who had health care that helped him get from polio to an all-star Little Leaguer voted against ... health care for children in this country.” Later, he pointed out that “a guy who has consistently voted for a war in Iraq has consistently voted against the warriors.”

Whether these are his own lines or some that have been crafted for him, they are the kind that hit home in 30-second sound-bite fashion.

But this isn’t 2007, and even a unified Democratic Party will have a way tougher time taking down Mitch McConnell than it did taking down a weakened governor who had been indicted in a hiring scandal.

For one thing, Lunsford comes with exploitable baggage, as some of Fischer’s campaign ads reminded us. And although most of the party’s leaders appear to be united behind him in this race, it is less certain that Democratic voters have forgiven him completely for endorsing Fletcher in the 2003 general election.
However, Lunsford’s baggage may be the least of Kentucky Democrats’ worries this year.

Tuesday’s 43 percent turnout by Democratic voters indicates a high level of motivation within the party. But nearly two-thirds of them voted for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the presidential primary, even though national pundits were already ceding the nomination to Sen. Barack Obama.

Exit polls conducted that day and a recent Herald-Leader/WKYT Kentucky Poll found that race matters to about 20 percent of the state’s Democratic voters. And that just accounts for the ones who would admit to discriminatory thoughts.

Such numbers provide a sad commentary on this state, but they also represent an unfortunate reality for Kentucky Democrats to deal with if Obama is at the top of the party’s ticket this fall.

Even if Clinton were to catch lightning in a bottle, I’m not sure things would get much better for Democrats. I suspect a substantial number of folks who voted for her because of Obama’s race did so because their racism trumped their sexism in the primary, and thus would vote for Sen. John McCain because of her gender in the general election.

Finally, there is McConnell himself, a master of fund-raising and nasty campaigns that go straight for the jugular.

So, no matter how united Democratic leaders may be, turning the Bluegrass State blue will be tough task this year.

Primary election thoughts

Today's column:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton did what the polls said she would do in Kentucky’s presidential primary. She beat Sen. Barack Obama soundly.

The margin might have exceeded some expectations, but that’s explainable since the Clinton family became Kentucky residents for the better part of a week and spent considerable time chatting up their new Kentucky neighbors while Obama made just one quick visit to the state.

But the thing is, if the national pundits have it right, nearly two-thirds of Kentucky Democrats voting in Tuesday’s primary joined a losing cause by choosing Clinton.

And that could pose a bit of a dilemma for Gov. Steve Beshear, who is one of the three Democratic superdelegates from Kentucky who have remained uncommitted throughout the primary campaign. (Jennifer Moore and Nathan Smith, the party’s state chairwoman and vice chairman, are the other two.)

Does he side with the overwhelming majority of Democrats voting in Kentucky’s primary and enlist in that probable losing cause?

Or does Beshear try to keep the more likely nominee thinking fondly of Kentucky — just in case he becomes the next president — by throwing his support to Obama?

Beshear’s decision might be easier if he could count on Kentucky backing the Democratic nominee in the fall. He could side with Democratic voters while still being confident Obama would have a reason to appreciate the state if he does win the White House.

But the polls suggest Kentucky will be a red state in November. And Beshear has that dilemma: Offend Kentucky Democrats or offend his party’s likely nominee?

Considering the gap in name recognition going in and how late Greg Fischer was in getting his campaign energized, Bruce Lunsford’s margin of victory in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary doesn’t bode well for his fall race against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Under those circumstances, Lunsford should have been able to get more than 51 percent of the primary vote.

McConnell, on the other hand, probably got the opponent he wanted, the one with the most baggage to exploit.

Although Fischer lost by 17 percentage points, he did well enough to suggest that he deserves another look from Democratic voters in some future race — if he gets better at the art of campaigning.

Democrats came into 2008 hoping to pick up a state Senate seat or two. But that may not be possible now.

Former U.S. Rep. Carroll Hubbard’s win in the 1st District primary could make it more difficult for Democrats to achieve their goal of unseating Republican incumbent Sen. Ken Winters. Rick Johnson, a former Court of Appeals judge, was thought to have a better shot at Winters than Hubbard, who was convicted on federal campaign violations and spent time in prison during the 1990s.

Steve Newberry’s win in Democratic primary for the 9th District seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Richie Sanders gives the party a strong contender in that race.

But even if Newberry does succeed in moving this seat from the R column to the D one, the party could lose a seat in the 3rd District, where incumbent Sen. Joey Pendleton faces a tough challenge from Republican Tom Jones.

So, if Newberry doesn’t come through for them in the 9th District, Democrats may actually lose a seat in the general election rather than picking up one or two.

But there will be a special election for a state Senate seat sometime after the general election, since two members of that body — Sen. David Boswell, a Democrat, and Republican Sen. Brett Guthrie — are competing for the 2nd District seat in the U.S. House.

VOTE!

Turnout at my precinct was low this morning, so I am encouraging everyone to go vote. There are some important decisions being made by those who do vote today, decisions that affect the future of our nation, our state and our communities. We are fortunate in this country. Voting is a right and a privilege not enjoyed by everyone in the world. We should exercise our right to vote at every opportunity.

A climate of embarrassment

Sunday's column:

FRANKFORT — Introducing the main speaker at an interim legislative committee meeting Wednesday, Chairman Jim Gooch mistakenly pronounced what should have been a silent “s.”

As a result, Viscount (“ví-kount,” according to Random House Webster’s College Dictionary) Christopher Walker Monckton became a “vizz (rhymes with fizz)-count.”

Although Rep. Mike Cherry, D-Princeton, got it right when he later addressed Monckton, several other lawmakers on the panel repeated the “vizzcount” mistake often during the course of a lengthy meeting. 

Should Kentuckians be embarrassed that some of their legislators don’t know a viscount from a vizzcount? Probably.

But hey, back in the day, I joined other folks where I grew up in claiming to hail from “Warshington” County instead of Washington County. So, who am I to cast pronunciation stones?

Besides, a mispronounced title was the least of the reasons Kentuckians should be embarrassed about the bizarre farce Representative Gooch, D-Providence, perpetrated on the state last week.

We should be embarrassed that he insulted our intelligence by providing Monckton and James Taylor of the Heartland Institute a forum to spread the gospel according to them on climate change — said gospel being that there is no such thing as global warming, and even if there is, humans aren’t contributing to it and we’ll all be the better for melting polar icecaps, rising ocean levels, higher temperatures and more extreme weather conditions.

We should be even more embarrassed that Gooch and several other members of the committee bought what the snake-oil peddler with the British accent and his sidekick were selling.

Rep. Brad Montell, R-Shelbyville, went so far as to label Monckton’s spiel a “splendid academic rebuttal” of the consensus scientific wisdom on climate change.

“Splendid” it was, in much the same way some of the more pompous and officious characters in a Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera are splendid sendups.

Academic rebuttal? Not.

It was just a guy with a slide show (173 of them, each bearing what appeared to be a crest composed of a crown atop a portcullis bracketed by chains), an authoritative voice and a well-practiced patter offering indecipherable graphs and formulas and disingenuous comparisons as “proof” that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and its counterparts in other developed nations and the mainstream media have all got it wrong on global warming.

I was particularly impressed with the way he interpreted the longer life expectancy in developed nations where there are high levels of carbon-dioxide emissions and the high child-mortality rates in undeveloped nations where there are low levels of emissions to mean that the higher emissions help people live longer.

Gee, you mean the better health care, better water treatment and better regulation of the food chain you find in developed nations has nothing to do with longer life spans and fewer child deaths?

Taylor’s presentation, filled with references to “alarmist global warming theory” and “alleged scientific consensus,” wasn’t nearly as entertaining as Monckton’s, but was equally disingenuous.

Whether Gooch and other apologists for the coal and oil industries want to admit it, the serious scientific debate about climate change is over. And wasting valuable committee time listening to non-scientists such as Monckton and Taylor say it isn’t won’t change that fact.

As James E. Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, said in a letter delivered to the committee Wednesday, “If such positions are taken seriously by Kentucky authorities, it risks more than embarrassment. It risks delay in serious evaluation of the appropriate response to the problems and the opportunities posed by the threat of climate change. ... Presentations that deny the reality of global climate change and the increasing role of human-made emissions are out of touch with current scientific knowledge.”

Yes, we Kentuckians should be embarrassed by Wednesday’s farcical waste of lawmakers’ time. And no one should be more embarrassed than the Democratic House leaders who awarded Gooch a committee chairmanship.

They — and we — should be thankful that TV writers are on strike at the moment. Otherwise, late-night viewers across the land would be guffawing at us now — and it wouldn’t be because a few of our lawmakers don’t know viscount from a vizzcount.

Pre-Fancy Farm random thoughts

Sunday's column:

This and that as my taste buds dream of the pork, mutton and fresh veggies at the Fancy Farm Picnic:

Although both houses of the General Assembly have departed Frankfort (temporarily, at least), the posturing over Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s failed special session continues.

It has changed forms, though. Instead of listening to bombastic floor speeches, we get to read letters.

First, House Speaker Jody Richards sent a missive to Fletcher and Senate President David Williams, inviting them to join him in traveling to St. Louis to meet with Peabody Energy CEO Gregory H. Boyce to discuss an incentive package for the development of alternative energy plants.

Williams responded with a letter questioning the need for such a trip and criticizing Richards and the House for failing to act on the package before gaveling out of the special session.

I also question the need for this trip, but not for the same reasons as Williams. My doubts stem from the appearance the trip would create.

When I think of the state’s three top political leaders seeking an audience with a CEO on the CEO’s turf to discuss what the state can do for his company, the image that comes to mind is one in which weak medieval rulers journey to the court of a powerful king to pay tribute.

Maybe that’s the norm in economic development these days, but it still doesn’t look good.

                                         * * *

Dr. James W. Holsinger may not have changed any senators’ minds with his testimony before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee last week.

However, I’m going to take the former head of the University of Kentucky medical school at his word when he says a controversial paper on homosexuality he wrote in 1991 “doesn’t represent where I am today, who I am today.”

His refusal to bow to legislators who criticized a conference on lesbian health issues hosted by UK in 2002 helps me take him at his word.

Mostly, though, my willingess stems from the fact that public acceptance of homosexuals has grown in the last 16 years. We’re still far from the tolerant, inclusive society we should be. But the attitudes of many Americans have evolved, thanks to increased familiarity with our gay and lesbian friends, co-workers and family members.

So, until he proves otherwise, I’m willing to believe one of the attitudes that have changed belongs to Holsinger.

                                           * * *

I hope members of the Kentucky Board of Education bought lottery tickets Friday. It could have been the luckiest day of their lives.

Had Barbara Erwin taken the job of education commissioner and lived up to the negative reviews she received from folks at some of her other career stops, board members would have had a train wreck of their own making on their hands.

They should be thankful for the “do over” they received when she bailed — thankful enough to do a better job search this time.

                                          * * *

Yes, it’s a long haul from the eastern half of Kentucky to Fancy Farm, way out there just a hop, skip and jump from the Big Muddy.

Yes, the Western Kentucky Parkway at times can be a boring ride.

And yes, the heat index often hits triple digits on the first Saturday in August, reminding us all of what Noel Coward had to say about mad dogs and Englishmen.

But the folks of St. Jerome Catholic Church know how to throw what back in the day (my day, anyway) might have been called a political “be-in.”

Last year, some usual suspects — including a few media wiseguys — took a look at the list of politicos who chose to skip the 126th Fancy Farm Picnic and decided the long haul, the boring ride and the heat of dog days weren’t worth it.

Their loss.

They weren’t there when Secretary of State Trey Grayson “jumped off the high board” into the pool of gubernatorial ambition.

So what if he later climbed out of the deep end and ran for re-election? His fanciful leap is now part of Fancy Farm lore.

State Rep. Mike Cherry of Princeton became part of that lore, too. Roller-blading to the picnic as part of Democrats’ “Bicycle Brigade” protest of high gas prices, Cherry took a head-over-heels tumble onto someone’s lawn.

Who will leave their mark on Fancy Farm’s colorful history this year?

Don’t wait to read or hear about it. Go. Pig out. Watch the show in person. Afterward, check out Paducah’s lively “Downtown After Dinner.”

It’s worth the trip.

Pro-life or pro-death?

Newsweek reports this week that there are more than 1,000 stem-cell therapies in early human trials around the world. The therapies are showing some success in treating such diseases as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes, according to the story.

The story also noted that the first use of embryonic stem cells in treating a human occurred last month and that Geron, a California biotech company, has plans for a trial involving the use of embryonic stem cells to treat spinal cord injuries.

Meanwhile, Australian lawmakers yesterday repealed a four-year ban on therapeutic cloning in embryonic stem-cell research in that country.

So, tell me again why we, as a nation, aren't putting hundreds of millions of dollars into stem-cell research, including the embryonic variety, since it holds so much promise for treating a variety of illnesses and injuries.

Oh, yeah, now I remember. It's because we have a president whose definition of "pro-life" includes using machines to keep someone in a persistent vegetative state alive indefinitely but does not include expanded federal spending on a form of research that can help people live longer, more productive and disease-free lives.

Go figure that one out.