Archive for July, 2010

Independent groups look to spend big in U.S. Senate race

By Bill Estep – bestep@herald-leader.com

A former Democratic candidate for Congress is heading a new effort to influence politics and policy in Kentucky that could play a role in this year’s general election.

The group, called Kentucky Leadership, hopes to raise $1.5 million to $2 million to get out its message, said Andrew Horne, a Louisville lawyer who ran for U.S. House in 2006 and pulled out of a race for U.S. Senate in 2008.

The announcement is another indication that groups other than campaign committees and political parties will likely spend a lot of money in coming months to sway voters’ opinions of candidates for federal office in Kentucky.

On Friday, for instance, the conservative Club for Growth, which reportedly spent millions in 2008 campaigns, announced it had endorsed Republican U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul. And earlier in the week, a group formed to oppose pro-union legislation criticized Attorney General Jack Conway, the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee.

“It’s almost like the money is itching to be spent,” said Laurie Rhodebeck, a political science professor at the University of Louisville who has followed the race.

Politics and Pitino topics for this week’s ‘Comment on Kentucky’

The 2011 governor’s race and this year’s U.S. Senate race in Kentucky, along with the federal extortion trial in Louisville involving basketball coach Rick Pitino, will be topics of discussion on this week’s “Comment on Kentucky,” a public-affairs show on the Kentucky Educational Television network.

Joining host Ferrell Wellman on the 30-minute show will be three reporters: Deborah Yetter of The Courier-Journal, Matt McCutcheon of WAVE-TV in Louisville and Jack Brammer of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Conway to meet Saturday with Fayette County Democrats

Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Jack Conway will attend an organizational meeting Saturday with Fayette County Democrats.

Conway, who faces Republican Rand Paul in the Nov. 2 general election, is to meet with party members at 11:15 a.m. Saturday at the Fayette County Democratic headquarters at 431 South Broadway.

Paul met with Fayette County supporters earlier this month at his Fayette County campaign office.

–Jack Brammer

Louisville businessman Phil Moffett running for governor

By Jack Brammer – jbrammer@herald-leader.com

Hoping to win support within the Tea Party movement, a Louisville businessman who advocates for charter schools and a state lawmaker are forming a Republican slate to run for governor and lieutenant governor next year.

Phil Moffett, managing partner of the telecommunications management company CCS Partners, is the first GOP candidate to enter the race for governor. The first-time candidate’s running mate is state Rep. Mike Harmon of Danville, who has been in the House since 2003.

A passel of other potentially formidable Republicans are still considering the race, including Senate President David Williams, Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer and state Rep. Bill Farmer of Lexington.

Moffett and Harmon announced their ticket Thursday on WHAS-TV in Louisville and on Leland Conway’s radio show on Lexington’s WLAP-AM. They were accompanied by David Adams, who recently left as campaign director of Republican Rand Paul’s bid for the U.S. Senate.

Poll: Chandler holds 14-point lead over Barr, but 1 in 5 undecided

U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler, D-Versailles, holds a 14-point lead over Republican challenger Andy Barr in the battle to represent Central Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District, according to a CN|2 Poll released Wednesday evening.

The telephone survey of 503 likely voters showed Chandler leading Barr 46.1 percent to 32.2 percent, but 20.9 percent of respondents were undecided. The poll, commissioned by the newly-formed news division of cable company Insight Communications and conducted by Braun Research Inc. of Princeton, N.J., has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.38 percentage points.

The survey found that 56.5 percent have a favorable view of Chandler, who has represented the district that covers most of 16 counties in the Lexington area since 2004.

Barr was viewed favorably by 41.7 percent of respondents, but more than a third of likely voters are unsure how they view the Lexington attorney making his first run for public office.

The poll also found that a slim plurality of likely voters in the district agreed with Chandler’s votes against the health care reform bill (48.2 percent to 43.2 percent with 8 percent undecided) and for the federal stimulus bill (44.8 percent to 41.1 percent with 11.8 percent undecided) . Respondents were split almost evenly over his vote in support of cap-and-trade environmental legislation (41.4 percent agreed, 40.4 percent disagreed and 17.1 percent were undecided).

PDF: Poll crosstabs

- John Stamper

State Democratic Party names new communications director

FRANKFORT — Matt Erwin, 30, of Louisville, is the new, full-time communications director for the Kentucky Democratic Party.

Erwin takes over from Barbara Hadley Smith, who was a part-time, temporary spokeswoman for the party until full-time staff was appointed. He will work for state party chair Daniel Logsdon.

“I’m very excited about the opportunity,” said Erwin, who worked five months last year in Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo’s unsuccessful campaign this year for the U.S. Senate and has worked for Jim Gray’s campaign for mayor of Lexington.

Erwin said he has been in Kentucky for two years. His wife, Alex, is in surgical residency at the University of Louisville.

Erwin, an Atlanta, Ga., native who holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Georgia, is a former aide to Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan.

–Jack Brammer

Speakers confirmed for Fancy Farm political picnic

Gov. Steve Beshear and the two candidates for U.S. Senate — Democratic Jack Conway and Republican Rand Paul – will headline the speakers at the Aug. 7 Fancy Farm political picnic in Graves County.

Mark Wilson, political chairman for the picnic that traditionally starts the fall election campaigns, has released a list of confirmed speakers. The event, on the grounds of St. Jerome Catholic Church in Fancy Farm, is free to the public.

Coal execs hope to spend big under new rules to defeat Conway and Chandler

By John Cheves – jcheves@herald-leader.com

Several major coal companies hope to use newly loosened campaign-finance laws to pool their money and defeat Democratic congressional candidates they consider “anti-coal,” including U.S. Senate nominee Jack Conway and U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler in Kentucky.

The companies hope to create a politically active nonprofit under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, so they won’t have to publicly disclose their activities — such as advertising — until they file a tax return next year, long after the Nov. 2 election.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last winter that corporations and labor unions may pour unlimited funds into such efforts to influence elections.

“With the recent Supreme Court ruling, we are in a position to be able to take corporate positions that were not previously available in allowing our voices to be heard,” wrote Roger Nicholson, senior vice president and general counsel at International Coal Group of Scott Depot, W.Va., in an undated letter he sent to other coal companies.

Slew of Republicans considering run for governor

By Jack Brammer – jbrammer@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — A slew of Republicans is considering challenging Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear in next year’s race for governor even though he already has more than $2 million in his campaign coffers and the power of incumbency at his disposal.

“Steve Beshear is vulnerable,” state Republican Party Chairman Steve Robertson said Tuesday, noting a GOP poll in early June of 1,020 likely voters that showed 37 percent of the respondents did not think Beshear deserves re-election and 51 percent thought someone else should have a chance to be governor.

That’s why you are seeing so many Republicans considering the race, Robertson said.

Beshear’s campaign spokesman, Matt Osborne, responded with a statement that said “it is way too early to start talking about next year’s campaign.”

Newberry’s campaign manager has badge, but no city job

Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry’s campaign manager, Lance Blanford, was at a press conference Tuesday morning wearing a badge with a city seal that said “Mayor’s Office” and “Campaign Manager,” (with the word “campaign” misspelled).

A photo of the identification card was e-mailed to the Herald-Leader Tuesday afternoon.

Newberry spokeswoman Susan Straub said Blanford is not a city employee and does not have a desk or phone in the government center. The badge just gets Blanford past the front desk security guards without having to show an I.D. each time he enters the building, she said.

“He occasionally comes to meetings here because, like it or not, the mayor is only one person and we have to have some scheduling meetings,” she said.

Beverly Fortune, a Herald-Leader reporter who is frequently in the government building, has a similar identification card.

- Andy Mead