Notes on Fancy Farm 2015

This fall’s campaign may well turn on who  Kentucky voters like less: Barack Obama or Pinocchio!

I think the Democrats came out of the Farm with a “bounce,”having been better prepared and organized than Republicans. Democratic  candidates all down the line kept after Matt Bevin, citing the Mitch McConnell playbook—labeling him as “not from Kentucky," an “East Coast con man”, and most devastating, to me, of all, a ”liar”—all taken from Mitch’s  charges and TV ads of last year’s Senate campaign.

The most powerful image I saw at the Farm, and it was all over KET’s coverage, were large, color posters of Bevin with a long, stick nose as Pinocchio had when he told a lie.

It’s just one image now, from an event that may well fade as the campaign rolls on, smothered by new gaffes ahead, but for now it looms large in my perspective…and as Republicans taught us under Ronald Reagan, images often carry much more weight that comments on issues affecting the voter..an appeal to emotions rather than intellect.

We will see.

Matt Jones did good…..especially when he pointed out that after more than a century, the first “woman of color” was on the stage as a major party candidate…and led the audience, on both sides of the aisle, in a round of applause for Jenean Hampton, the GOP candidate for lieutenant governor. (He was also right in criticizing Rand Paul for not being there, and insisting “Come home, Rand, you’re going to lose!”)

She made a good talk, continuing Bevin’s theme that “Kentucky is better than this," better than the mudslinging, down and dirty comments at Fancy Farm that do not elevate out civic discourse.  Too bad neither major newspaper deigned to carry any coverage of her talk. 

After all these years (and the current issue of how our state should treat Civil War History) one has to wonder if we truly know that history and how we just might sanitize it by pending actions.  

Meanwhile, it's Obama versus Pinocchio!  

I'm Just Sayin'...