KyKurmudgeon

In the Kentucky General Assembly, no predictions of vote counts on controversial issues are safe until, well, the actual votes are counted. But the word I’ve been hearing on multiple occasions the last couple of days is that there are 52 “hard” House votes for Slots Bill. And if the vote comes Friday, as is expected, 56 yes votes are possible.

Politico.com is reporting that Secretary of State Trey Grayson has formed an exploratory committee for a U.S. Senate race in case Sen. Jim Bunning changes his mind and decides not to seek re-election. Asked about the report, Grayson’s spokesman Les Fugate released the following statement from Grayson:

“I have formed an exploratory committee to allow me to formally raise and spend funds as I seek support for a bid for U.S. Senate.  I have no plans to run against Senator Bunning.  This exploratory committee will allow me to travel the Commonwealth, meet with potential supporters and lay the foundation for a campaign.”

According to the report on Politico.com, Grayson has hired Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s pollster Jan von Lohuizen to handle polling. The report quoted von Lohuison as saying, “Trey did this with Bunning’s blessing.”

Ellis Park plans to cut racing days this year and may close next year if Kentucky tracks can’t become competitive with their counterparts in other states where purses are supplemented by revenue from expanded gambling. Turfway Park and Kentucky Downs have indicated they may request fewer race dates in 2010.

Even mighty Churchill Downs, which currently plans to request the same number of dates for 2010, will “reassess” its position after this fall’s meet. If that reassessment leads to a change of plans, Keeneland would be the only track offering as much racing in 2010 as it does this year.

With so many gaps in the year-round racing circuit Kentucky has offered for decades, we would see a mass exodus of Kentucky-based racing operations forced by financial considerations to find such a circuit elsewhere.

“Kentucky’s signature industry … is fading away, folks, before our very eyes,” Ellis Park owner Ron Geary told the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission as he announced his track’s plans.

And fading very, very fast. Over the years, I’ve written several columns about the impending end of racing as we know it in Kentucky if lawmakers continued to deny tracks revenue from expanded gambling. Apparently, the end will come in 2010.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich

What an appropriate picture from the Chicago Sun-Times. The photographer deserves a prize for capturing Blahgojevich and the “Target: Rats” sign so perfectly.

And if I weren’t your basic illiterate in the high-tech department, I would have had it up last week. After trying failing several times, I finally wised up and asked for help.

Kentucky has had its share of official corruption, but this guy’s plan to sell President-elect Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder tops anything I can remember in the Bluegrass State.

I’m taking off for Turkey Week. Should be back Monday, Dec. 1 in a semi-normal routine. Hope I remember how to write columns after spending most of my time the last couple of weeks editing other folks’ stuff.

Happy Turkey Day to all!

To see a portion of the speech Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gave in praise of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, who has now been convicted on seven felony counts, click: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjA_4Pdi5Bk

I’m taking some time off this week. Expect to be back Oct. 6.

My stint of filling in for absent H-L editorial board colleagues continues for a couple of extra days. Hope to be back at the blog by midweek. But Kentucky politics is fairly boring at the moment anyway.

Sunday’s column:

FRANKFORT — This and that before taking a long holiday break:

When retired Marine Lt. Col. Andrew Horne announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate last week, one liberal blog gushingly described him as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s “worst nightmare.”

I think I’ll wait a bit before joining that chorus.

Horne, who lost to John Yarmuth in last year’s Democratic primary for the 3rd District congressional seat, has potential. But that’s all it is at the moment. Just potential.

He remains relatively unknown outside Jefferson County. Plus, there’s the money issue. Can Horne rock the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s world enough that it will respond with a national effort to match the $10 million (and counting) McConnell has raised?

Still, Horne has a couple of assets that suggest he could become a bit of a nightmare for McConnell with the right amount of money and a slicker campaign style than he displayed last year.

First, he has no record in public office that McConnell can sift through to find the ammo for his famous attack ads. Former Gov. Paul Patton recently told the Herald-Leader’s Ryan Alessi, “Bluntly, a person without an extensive record might be the best candidate (for Democrats). Then, the race would be on McConnell.”

I agree.

Second, Horne has a credibility on the Iraq war that no other potential Democratic candidate, or even McConnell, can match. He’s been there, done that, still has the T-shirt. The others can’t say that.

And Horne’s on-line video announcement Thursday contained a perfect slogan for stressing that difference in a race against McConnell: “Mitch McConnell carries George Bush’s water on Iraq; I carried a rifle in Iraq.”

Andrew Horne as Mitch McConnell’s “worst nightmare”? No, not yet. A project with potential? Maybe.

                                       * * *

In what might be seen as an attempt to set the tone for his administration, Gov. Steve Beshear dropped in at the outset of Friday’s Executive Branch Ethics Commission meeting.

In his brief appearance, he told the commission members how important their job was and stressed his commitment to running an ethical administration.

Long after Beshear left the meeting, commission members got around to issuing advisory opinions on three of his appointees: Environmental and Public Protection Secretary Robert Vance, Personnel Secretary Nikki Jackson and Communications Director Phil Osborne.

In each instance, the commission concluded that the Beshear appointee could take the job, but with certain conditions for avoiding conflicts of interest. For Vance and Jackson, compliance with those conditions should not be overly difficult. But the conditions outlined for Osborne made me wonder if he could be effective as communications director even before he opted not to take the job.

Osborne is sole owner of Preston-Osborne, a public relations firm with numerous clients that do business with the state or have an interest in public policy issues. He planned to take a leave of absence and accept no salary or dividends from the company while on the state payroll. But he would have continued to own it.

And that would have proved problematic for him in light of Friday’s opinion, which said in part: “The commission believes the potential employee should have no involvement (discussions, decisions, actions, recommendations) as part of his official duty in any matters pertaining to his firm, any clients of his firm, or any firms that compete with his firm.”

One of Preston-Osborne’s clients is the Kentucky Equine Education Project, which supports expanded gambling – as does Beshear – and whose members in the racing industry stand to benefit if it passes.

As communications director, Osborne’s role would have included crafting the message for the Beshear administration. A key portion of that message, at least over the next few months, will involve expanded gambling.

Clearly, the opinion left Osborne facing an unacceptable dilemma. He couldn’t be involved in crafting the message for Topic A on the governor’s agenda while his firm retained KEEP as a client, which meant his effectiveness in his job would have been greatly diminished.

Ultimately, Beshear and Osborne got this one right, but not without a bit of messiness.