McConnell continues bus tour

By RONNIE ELLIS
CNHI News Service

October 27, 2008 01:05 pm

— Mitch McConnell’s pitch for a fifth term as U.S. Senator is simple — he can deliver for Kentucky and his opponent can’t.
His opponent, Democrat millionaire businessman Bruce Lunsford, has his own pitch: 24 years is long enough for McConnell to be in Washington and his support for George Bush’s policies helped create “the mess we’re in.”
Both were out in the state on Saturday. Lunsford appeared in Elizabethtown with Vietnam War veteran and former Nebraska U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey, Gov. Steve Beshear and former Gov. John Y. Brown, in whose administration Lunsford worked. McConnell worked central Kentucky, starting in Lexington, going to Winchester, Estill County, traveling to Richmond and Boyle County.
McConnell told Republican crowds at each that his position as Republican leader in the Senate is “about a lot more than just pride” for Kentuckians.
“I’m in the middle of everything and I assure you not a day goes by that I don’t look for an opportunity to advance Kentucky,” McConnell said. That allowed him to secure $100 million for the University of Kentucky, write the tobacco buyout legislation, which translated into $38 million for tobacco farmers in Clark County, he told the crowd in Winchester. He takes credit for bringing $500 million in federal funds to Kentucky last year alone.
Lunsford knows that’s McConnell’s pitch – at nearly every stop, the Democrat says that money works out to a little less than $30 for each Kentuckian but the “McConnell-Bush polices” created a financial crisis and has drawn out the war in Iraq and done little for the average Kentuckian.
Clark County farmer and Democratic state Rep. Don Pasley said McConnell should have supported earlier buyout proposals than that for which he takes credit.
“It would’ve been a lot better for the tobacco farmer when (former Sen.) Wendell Ford presented his plan in the late 90s. It would’ve amounted to about twice as much money,” Pasley said. “I still think McConnell places more importance in taking care of corporate America than the average Kentuckian.”
That’s not the way independent trucker Kenneth Howard, 40, of Winchester sees it. Howard, a registered Republican,, said “diesel prices have skyrocketed since Democrats took control” of Congress and he prefers Republican tax policies.
“I pay both sides of my unemployment taxes and the other side says they’re going to raise my unemployment taxes,” said Howard.
Clark County Sheriff Berl Perdue Jr., a Republican, said McConnell should win Clark County.
“We’re a Democratic county, but with very conservative values,” Perdue said.
Pasley wouldn’t say Lunsford can win Clark County, but he said he thinks it’ll be close. He predicted McConnell will win Madison County because of his efforts to secure funding for the Bluegrass Army Depot and the destruction of chemical weapons stored there.
McConnell told an enthusiastic crowd of Republicans at their campaign headquarters in downtown Richmond that he’s battled the U.S. Army to destroy those weapons “quickly but safely” and over his career had secured $100 million for the project.
In Winchester, about 15 veterans posed with McConnell for photos. Veterans’ issues are the subject of competing attack ads by McConnell and Lunsford.
In Richmond, Steve Egington, 59, a retired Army veteran and Republican, said all his veteran friends support McConnell.
“I’ve not run into one veteran who has said they are for Lunsford,” Egington said. “The only thing Mitch has got that’s a problem is how long he’s been in there, but in the position he’s in now (as minority leader), we cannot afford to lose somebody like that here in Kentucky.”
Ronnie Ellis writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.