Published: August 02, 2008 10:04 pm      

Weather hot, rhetoric not, at Fancy Farm

Lunsford, McConnell featured race, but Beshear may have had best day

FANCY FARM, Ky. — Those who gathered in the stifling, suffocating 95-degree heat for the 128th Fancy Farm picnic hoping to see Mitch McConnell and Bruce Lunsford light each other up might have been a little disappointed Saturday.

But they got a clear picture of how the campaign for the U.S. Senate will be fought.

McConnell is the Senate Republican Leader being challenged by Democrat Lunsford and the two have been waging a television ad war centered on rising gasoline prices. Saturday was their first face-to-face encounter, and they were expected to go at each other.

But both delivered wooden speeches, Lunsford reading his as he for the first time faced the unruly Fancy Farm partisan hecklers. McConnell never mentioned Lunsford, aiming his attacks on Washington Democrats and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

“Barack Obama doesn’t care if you’re paying $4 a gallon for gasoline,” McConnell said, quoting Obama as saying he would’ve “preferred a gradual adjustment.”

“At least Bill Clinton would’ve felt you pain,” McConnell said.

Lunsford was more direct. He accused McConnell and fellow Republican Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning of “taking care of themselves and putting the screws to the middle class.”

Bunning, who was making his first trip to Fancy Farm since 2004 during his own re-election campaign and who said he wouldn’t return after he said reporters and Democratic supporters “roughed up my wife,” echoed McConnell’s television ads which accuse Lunsford of pushing an automatic increase in Kentucky’s motor fuels tax 30 yeas ago. In the ad, people portraying gas customers at the pump complain about prices, and then derisively say, “Thanks, Bruce.”

Bunning recounted a list of Democratic positions on energy policy, saying Lunsford supported each and each would increase prices. He concluded every time by saying, “Thanks Bruce.”

The best speech of the day, recalling old-time stem winders from the stump in the Fancy Farm tradition, came from Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear who hammered national Republican policies and touted his recent announcements of projects in west Kentucky.

He and Lunsford poked fun at Bunning’s oft-stated intention not to return to Fancy Farm, thanking him for coming Saturday.

“I think I had something to do with it, because I called his office and offered to call out the National Guard to protect him down here if he needed it,” Beshear said. Bunning, seated with his wife, Mary, just to Beshear’s left, smiled.

Beshear hammered McConnell on the economy and energy, blaming Republicans and McConnell for high gas prices and said, “They’ve been in bed with the big oil companies for the last eight years.”

But in a state thought to be heavily leaning toward Republican John McCain over Obama, the first African American presidential nominee of a major party, Beshear, unlike some other Kentucky Democrats, openly invoked Obama and his theme of change.

”It is time, my friends, for a change. The winds of change are blowing across this country,” Beshear called out over Republican hecklers. “The winds of change are blowing and are you ready to take your country back? Are you ready to elect Barack Obama as the next president of the United States? And are you ready to elect Bruce Lunsford as the next United States Senator?”

Predictably, those on the Democratic side of the evenly divided pavilion roared their assent while those on the Republican side hooted and hollered.

McConnell, too, crafted his remarks around an Obama refrain – “Yes, we can,” touting his proposed energy legislation which Democrats oppose.

“I say, yes we can find more energy . . .” by drilling off shore, developing oil shale and coal-to-liquid processes, electric cars and nuclear power. He said America “needs to find more (energy) and use less.”

“Democrats just need to get out of the way and let us go to work and when they do that, we’ll say yes we can,” McConnell said, as Republican supporters and staffers walked around in false beards and Arab robes with signs that said “Arab Sheiks for Bruce Lunsford.”

“John McCain and Mitch McConnell say yes we can,” McConnell said. “And the people of Kentucky will say no we can’t to Barack Obama. Yes we can to McCain and to McConnell.”

McConnell and McCain have often clashed over issues such as campaign finance and off-shore drilling before McCain reversed himself to support drilling on the outer continental shelf. But McConnell often talks about how badly Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton defeated Obama in the Kentucky primary and now allies himself with McCain who polls show has a wide lead over Obama in the state.

Lunsford hit McConnell hard on economic issues, accusing him of selling out to special interests.

“Mitch McConnell ought to hang a for-sale sign around his neck,” Lunsford said. “He’s not who he says he is and he’s not on our side. He’s a politician who will say or do anything to hold onto power.”

McConnell took no questions afterward, being escorted from the pavilion by aides and security to a waiting car. Bunning also left before all he speeches were finished, but he answered questions from reporters as he walked away.

There was some brief moment of confusion when Bunning rose to speak. Behind him, a Kentucky State Trooper hustled off the stand a man carrying a banana. Officer Dean Patterson later said the man was carrying a banana and apparently he tried to give it to McConnell. Patterson said the man appeared to represent no threat and was released.

RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.