KyKurmudgeon

Whew! It got hot at Saturday’s 129th Annual Fancy Farm Picnic, but not from the weather. A fairly constant breeze kept the mid-80s temps tolerable.

What got hot was the race between Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo and Attorney General Jack Conway for the 2010 Democratic nomination for U.S. senator. They went after each other with a passion that assures this will not be the polite Democratic primary contest Kentuckians witnessed in the 2007 gubernatorial campaign. And Secretary of State Trey Grayson must be loving it, because the Republican frontrunner stands to benefit from any fracture the D’s suffer as a result of a heated Mongiardo-Conway race.

Mongiardo took the first shot, reminding the crowd, “Jack Conway is a proud Duke Blue Devil, and I’m a proud Kentucky Wildcat.” And that was one of the nicer things he said about Conway.

“I may be a doctor and lieutenant governor,” he said, “but I certainly wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. In the Senate I’m going to stand up for people who eat barbecue with a fork, not caviar with a silver spoon.”

“Silver spoon” was a constant theme of his speech. “Jack is a nice guy, but he chooses to fight for silver spoon issues preferred by the champaign and caviar crowd.”

Mongiard also attacked Conway on the cap-and-trade issue. “Jack’s energy tax is a job killer,” he said.

“I went there before Christian Laettner,” Conway said in response to the Duke reference, “and I’ll take this pledge. Joe B. Hall is running around out here somewhere. If it will help you out and make you feel better, I’ll pledge to lay down in front of these cameras, and we’ll let Joe b. stomp on my chest.”

In regard to Mongiardo’s other attacks, Conway said, “Dan, you may be an ear, nose and throat doctor; but you’ve misdiagnosed me. When it comes to me, you can’t hear the truth, you can’t smell the truth, and you sure as hell can’t speak the truth.”

Both men tried to verbally connect themselves to Wendell Ford, the former governor and U.S. senator from Western Kentucky. Conway even quoted him in a feisty response to the vocal crowd that tried to drown out his speech. “You all can holler all you want at me,” he said, “and I can hear you. But it’s like Wendell used to say … go ahead and chew on my hide. Chew on it. It only grows back tougher. And I’ve been around awhile, and you’re looking at one tough son of a bitch.”

On the cap-and-trade issue, Conway pledge to never cast a vote that hurt coal “and you have my word on that today.”

Those two fired-up speeches make the oratory of other declared and potential Senate candidates seem a bit tame. Grayson’s best line in an OK speech came after he congratulated Mongiardo (whose wife is pregnant with their first child) and Conway, whose wife recently delivered their first child.

“You all will love being parents,” said Grayson, the father of two young daughters. “The good news is that babies eventually sleep regularly. The even better news is that after November 2010, you will have plenty of time to spend with your families.

Among the Tier 2 candidates, Democrat Darlene Fitzgerald Price impressed me a bit by delivering a spirited speech extemporaneously. Her main theme was that government has been bought by “the bigs” - various industries and special interest groups. If members of Congress were in NASCAR, she said, they would have to wear the names of their sponsor on their sleeves and a big “For Sale” on their bumper. She punctuated the latter remark by pointing at her posterior.

Republican businessman Bill Johnson also delivered his remarks off the cuff. The 10-year military veteran said, “My job now it to fight the domestic enemies, and there are a lot of them.” When someone in the crowd shouted out President Barack Obama’s name, Johnson said, “And Obama is one of them.” He also said the entire Democratic Pary is a “wrecking crew.”

Maurice Sweeney, an African-American businessman from Jefferson County with roots in Western Kentucky, descibed himself as a “conservative Democrat.” He said most politicians are predictable. “With me, you can’t guess what you’ll get,” he said, which is an unusual pitch for votes.

Rand Paul, the son of former presidential candidate and U.S. Rep Ron Paul who is expected to officially enter the Republican primary in the near future, failed to impress me. He accused both parties of hypocrisy, and criticized Congress for passing a bank bailout bill no one had read.

He also described Conway as “the epitome of a career politician” because, after a 30-minute discussion of the cap-and-trade issue, Paul claimed he had “no idea” what Conway said. Thing is, though, Conway is in the second year of his first term in elective office. Paul has every right to criticize Conway for obfuscation if Conway hemmed and hawed on the discussion of an issue. But “career politician”? Not! At least, not yet.