Beech Tree News Network

There will be plenty of political morsels to chew on Saturday at the Fancy Farm Picnic.

The 133rd annual event will feature one of the most anticipated midterm elections in the country and a rare preview of the primary and, likely, general elections.

U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell will share a stage with his primary challenger, Louisville investment executive Matt Bevin, and Democratic candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of state.

Interest in the 2014 U.S. Senate race’s first round of verbal sparring has drawn C-SPAN and other national news outlets to the tiny Graves County community, said Mark Wilson, political chairman of the picnic.

It’s only the second time C-SPAN has broadcast the picnic. The national nonprofit network came to Fancy Farm in 2010, when the event featured the race between Republican Sen. Rand Paul and Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway for U.S. Senate.

“When you have C-SPAN do it live, that’s about as a good a barometer that you’ll get as far as the interest in the Fancy Farm venue,” said Wilson, who has organized the stump speeches since 2005.

Al Cross, director of the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and former political writer for The Courier-Journal, said this year’s picnic could be “a classic.”

“I can’t recall another instance in which we’ve had a senator who will be on the same stage as his primary opponent and his likely general election opponent, being attacked from either side,” Cross said.

Even without an election this fall, Fancy Farm should draw a raucous crowd of 10,000 to 15,000, Wilson said. McConnell’s camp has done its part to bring in spectators, placing robo calls to Republican voters urging them to attend the church picnic.

Heat has been building in the Senate race even before Grimes announced her candidacy in early July.

McConnell has portrayed Grimes as a liberal in lockstep with President Barack Obama while Grimes has said the five-term senator has lost touch with Kentucky voters. She’s begun distancing herself from Obama, an unpopular figure in the state, in brief interviews and on her campaign website.

Fancy Farm will be the first encounter between the two likely Senate candidates.

Bevin, McConnell’s primary opponent backed by Kentucky tea party groups, will also have five minutes at the podium. The Louisville hedge fund executive faces long odds at unseating McConnell, who has backing from Paul and prominent Republicans in the General Assembly.

A May poll by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling showed McConnell and Grimes even at 45 percent. Last week, Republican pollster Wenzel Strategies released a survey showing McConnell led Grimes by 8 points and Bevin by 39.

How McConnell handles attacks from both sides will be an intriguing storyline at Fancy Farm, which could be the first look at McConnell’s campaign strategy moving forward, said Steve Voss, a University of Kentucky political science professor.

“He’s got a challenge on his right flank in an attempt to pose a tea party challenge, and he’s got a Democrat who has generated at least some excitement,” Voss said.

“He has to decide early on, is he going to not worry about the tea party challenge and play to a general audience, or is he concerned enough about this primary challenge that he needs to shore up his conservative base?”

The Senate race will also take shape beyond the traditional stump speeches before hundreds of cheerleaders and hecklers. McConnell, Grimes and Bevin will work the crowds at pre-Fancy Farm dinners and breakfasts, Cross said.

Groundwork for potential gubernatorial campaigns will be laid in Western Kentucky next weekend as well, he said.

Three possible candidates — Democrats Conway and Auditor Adam Edelen and Republican Agriculture Commissioner James Comer — are scheduled to speak at the picnic. Democratic Lt. Gov. Jerry Abramson, another potential candidate, declined an invitation to speak Saturday.

“The breakfasts are going to be quite interesting because you’ve got the McConnell and Bevin face-off at the Republican breakfast,” Cross said, “and at the Democratic breakfast you have Grimes trying to get her party fired up about the race, but you’ll have lots of other speakers, many of whom are interested in running for governor.”

The race is two years away, but there’s always
intrigue surrounding the next resident of the
Governor’s Mansion.

Voss said Comer will be one to watch as a rising star in the GOP.

“Democrats have a lot larger pool from which to draw for significant contests because they own most of the statewide spots, and they also have some former big wigs lurking who could run,” he said.

“The Republicans are thinner, and Comer, as the sole Republican statewide official, is the logical candidate to leap into a race, and this is a chance to see what he can do when he’s not running for what we call a down-ticket position.”

Some debate the significance of the stump speeches, but Fancy Farm has become a rite of passage for Kentucky politicians.

It’s also a place with more risk than reward. One slip could tilt an election, such as former Republican Sen. Jim Bunning’s infamous 1998 television ad that set Democrat Scotty Baesler’s fiery Fancy Farm speech to “Ride of the Valkyries.”

The vocal, partisan crowd can prove daunting while trying to deliver a message, said state Sen. Julian Carroll, who first took the stage at Fancy Farm in 1971 while running for lieutenant governor.

“It sure tests your ability to think on your feet and be responsive to whatever incident is created in the course of your appearance,” Carroll, a Democrat, said.

Larry Forgy, who ran for governor as a Republican in 1995, said some wilt when facing a boisterous audience.

He recalled a remark from his campaign consultant, a Texas native, after the picnic that year. Forgy said a panda bear-costumed “pander bear” tried to shove Forgy off the stage during his speech.

“He said there is nothing else as upfront and personal in American politics that I know anything about,” Forgy said. “There’s nothing more upfront and personal in American politics than this. He said, ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’”

Story by Kevin Wheatley
The Frankfort State Journal

Kentucky Press News Service