A few thoughts on my favorite annual pig out and political free-for-all in the order they were entered in my notebook:
Wow! The combination of heat and humidity and the effect on an aging body were the worst I can remember for a Fancy Farm Picnic. (Of course, I have an aging memory, too, so “worst” may be relative.) But thanks to the kindness of some friendly folks who invited me to spend a while in some cool motor homes, I survived.
Considering the heat, it was good that a variety of groups were handing out statement-making fans. The most creative came from the D’s and offered the following Top 10 Reasons to Re-elect Mitch McConnell:
“10. $4.00 per gallon gas is too cheap.
“9. Chinese jobs are more important than ours.
“8. Health insurance is overrated.
“7. Millionaires deserve tax breaks more than I do.
“6. The minimum wage is too high.
“5. I prefer my tax dollars going to build bridges in Iraq instead of building bridges in Kentucky.
“4. Working three jobs is the American Dream.
“3. Seniors shouldn’t get a free ride called Social Security and veterans don’t deserve benefits.
“2. $9.5 trillion in national debt just isn’t enough.
“1. I want the next six years to be worse than the last six.”
The same list also appeared on D T-shirts and in the party’s “Fancy Farm Times” publication, which also noted that, when McConnell went to Washington 24 years ago, gas was $1.10 a gallon and the national debt (now $9.5 trillion) was $1.48 trillion.
Lest you think all the digs were directed at McConnell, one of his supporters carried around a large sign with a picture of D Senate candidate Bruce Lunsford at one of his recent gas-pumping stops with the slogan, “Thanks Bruce for sticking it to Kentucky.”
Former University of Kentucky basketball coach Joe B. Hall was there, sporting stickers supporting Lunsford and 3rd District U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth and a pin backing Carroll Hubbard for the state Senate.
At one point as Lunsford worked the crowd, three guys dressed as sheiks tagged along with signs carrying messages such as “No Domestic Drilling + High Gas Prices = Smiling Sheiks.” At least eight R “sheiks” were in the crowd wearing long white robes, fake beards and turbans. In that heat and humidity, they may have stumbled on the greatest diet plan in history.
D’s had a life-size cardboard picture of President George W. Bush, McConnell and a third body with a hole where its head should be so anyone who wished could stick their face in the hole and have a picture made. The cartoon bubble above Bush (in the middle) read, “Mitch, I feel so close to you.” The bubble above McConnell (to Bush’s left) read, “Well, I do vote with you 95% of the time.” The bubble above the headless body (to Bush’s right) read, “I’ve had enough.” Frankly, I think the D’s got it symbolically reversed by putting McConnell on Bush’s left and the exasperated Headless Voter on the president’s right.
On to comments about the speechifying, occasionally interrupted by signs in the crowd:
Former Gov. Paul Patton and his wife Judi joined the other honored guests on the stage.
As the time for oratory drew close, the R side of the crowd started chanting “Six more years” in support of McConnell. D’s responded with “Ditch Mitch.”
SIGN: “Bruce, where are you flying home to tonight?”
“We want to have fun here,” Mark Wilson, the chairman of the political portion of the picnic, told the crowd. “I want to have fun here. But please, let’s be civil to our speakers.” A bit later, Wilson modified that request to “at least, halfway civil.” With bused-in hecklers filling the space under the covered shelter, even “halfway civil” would be a miracle.
The D side of the stage was way more crowded than the R side, but the crowd in the shelter seemed evenly matched.
SIGN: “God didn’t get it wrong. Stop mountaintop removal.” Although the sign appeared on the D side of the shelter, it’s a sentiment that could be a criticism of both parties.
“There might be some people here who have not made up their mind who they’re going to vote for,” said House Majority Leader Rocky Adkins, this year’s master of ceremonies, in echoing Wilson’s request for civility. Yeah, right! If anyone under that shelter had not made up his or her mind yet, they were either members of the media covering the event or picnic volunteers. The vast majority of the crowd were rabid one way or the other.
In his opening remarks, Adkins mentioned the late Vice President Alben Barkley and a number of former governors who had joined the speechifying fun at Fancy Farm over the years. Barkley and all of the governors he mentioned are/were D’s, as is Adkins. It’s understandable that any MC might choose to ignore scandal-tainted former Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s visits to Fancy Farm. But the omission of the late Louie Nunn made Adkins remarks seem unnecessarily partisan.
This year, picnic organizers had a new method for forcing speakers to abide by the time limits on their speeches. Anyone who ran over was immediately drowned out by the Frankfort Bluegrass band No Tools Loaned’s version of Foggy Mountain Breakdown. U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning was the first speaker to suffer that indignity.
Gov. Steve Beshear, the first speaker on the program, was greet from the R side of the crowd with shouts of “Tolly ho!” and a large picture of him dressed in a fox-hunting outfit. Beshear responded by remarking on the “funeral home fans” in the R’s hands and saying, “They’re going to a funeral Nov. 4 when we bury their candidates.” Beshear went on to express his pleasure that U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning “is here with us again finally,” adding that he had call Bunning office to offer to call out the National Guard to ensure the senator’s security. (Bunning previously had said he might never return to Fancy Farm because of concerns for his and his wife’s safety.) All in all, it was the most spirited speech I’ve heard Beshear deliver. But that comes with a caveat. I remember opining that Fletcher’s 2004 speech, also his first as a sitting governor, was the best I had heard from him. And we all know how that ended.
SIGN (from the D side): “So sad the party that once stood for family values has flushed themselves down the toilet.” Hello, U.S. Sen. Larry Craig.
The order of the speaking in contested elections was decided by a coin flip, with the incumbent making the call and the winner deciding who went first. McConnell won the coin flip with Lunsford and opted to go last, which led Lunsford to say it was appropriate for the incumbent to go second because ‘that’s where he’s going to finish on Nov. 4.” Lunsford also noted Bunning’s presence by referring to ‘being attacked by someone who probably knew Babe Ruth.” Lunsford spoke directly to the D side of the crowd, ignoring chants that took off on McConnell’s “Thanks Bruce” ads that refer to his involvement in getting an automatic gas tax increase approved during the administration of former Gov. John Y. Brown Jr. and other chants of “Two-time loser” (Lunsford lost two gubernatorial primaries in which he spent about $15 million of his own money) that morphed into “Three-time loser,” a reference to his campaign against McConnell. He ignored the R side so completely, the eight R “sheiks” moved over to the D side to get in his line of sight. Lunsford closed with a reference to McConnell’s infamous 1984 “hound dog” campaign against former Sen. Walther “Dee” Huddleston by saying, “Let’s sic the hound dogs on Mitch McConnell.”
For his part, McConnell totally ignored Lunsford, focusing instead on D presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama. That’s typical for McConnell, who rarely if ever affords an opponent the honor of mentioning their name. McConnell spent his time attacking the “liberals (including Obama) … (who) love to raise gas prices.” It was an R them throughout the day, taking an energy issue that should have been their weakness (the way Enron should have been their weakness a few years ago) because it’s totally attributable to the Bush administration Mideast fiasco and turning it back on the D’s by stressing domestic production and attacking environmentalism. “Democrats just need to get out of the way and let us get to work (on addressing the energy crisis,” McConnell concluded. “And when they do, we can all say: Yes, we can.”
SIGN: “You can tell when Mitch lies … it’s when he opens his mouth.”
SEVERAL SIGNS ON THE SAME HANDLE:
Alfred E. Neuman’s picture from Mad.
“What, me worry?
“8 years as George Bush’s lapdog.
“Owned and operated by big oil and big insurance.
‘Money = free speech.”
In his speech, Bunning played McConnell’s attack dog, accusing Lunsford of wanting to join the “legions of environmental wackos” in Washington, D.C. His speech was also laced with several references to the “Thanks Bruce” theme of McConnell’s ads.
Heather Ryan, the D candidate in the 1st District U.S. House race, thanked McConnell for getting her into the race. “If he had not been such a thin-skinned, dirty, corrupt politician,” she might not have fulfilled her dream of running for Congress and speaking at the Fancy Farm Picnic, she told the crowd. Ryan, who had a previously well-publicized run-in with McConnell in a public forum, noted that the Kentucky’s senior U.S. senator departed before her turn at the lectern. “He must have been afraid of my 12-year-old daughter again,” she said.
Imitating McConnell, incumbent 1st District U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield didn’t make reference to Ryan. He chose instead to talk about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Obama, saying they “want to bring the values of San Francisco and Chicago to rural America.”
SIGN: “Kentucky can do better than liquid coal.”
SIGN: “Nancy Pelosi blocks oil drilling.”
Like McConnell before them, Bunning and Whitfield left the stage not long after speaking. The D’s, including Beshear hung around.
Interestingly enough, I didn’t see state Rep. Greg Stumbo in the crowd, even though he had said he would be there earlier in the week. House Speaker Jody Richards, whom Stumbo might challenge in next January’s leadership races, was there working the crowd.
And of course, the barbecued pork and mutton and the fresh veggies were to die for, as usual.
Larry Dale Keeling, a columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader, has spent most of his 35-plus years in journalism reporting on or writing editorials and columns about Kentucky’s politics and political issues. He now brings his experience and expertise on those topics to the KyKurmudgeon blog.