By Cheyene Miller
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications
MAYFIELD, Ky. – The 2015 Kentucky governor’s race heated up
just ahead of the annual Fancy Farm Picnic as both candidates leveled attacks
against one another.
At a Republican dinner Friday night, Matt Bevin said of
Democrat Jack Conway, “He’s not qualified to be the governor of this state” because
of his lack of business experience.
“He never served this nation in the military. He’s never
made payroll. He’s never worked in the
private sector except a few months at a time working for his dad between
political gigs,” Bevin told reporters after the Marshall County dinner. “He has no qualifications to be governor
other than the fact that he is the result of a system that has groomed him for
this from the time he was born.”
Conway fired back Saturday morning by touting his experience
as a private-sector attorney and his fiscal responsibility as attorney general, nd questioning Bevin’s own qualifications. “I am one heck of a lot more qualified to be governor than
Matt Bevin is,” Conway told reporters. He
said Bevin “couldn’t even tell a group of retirees a few weeks ago” a key facet
of concern about state pension funding.
“Matt
Bevin has a platform on education that’s a bunch of platitudes that would decimate
public education in this state,” Conway said. “Matt
Bevin just a couple of months ago went on statewide TV and said early education
serves no purpose. That doesn’t sound
like someone’s who’s qualified to be governor to me.”
Bevin accused Kentucky Democrats of sweeping issues like the legislative sexual-harassment scandal under the rug during their longstanding dominance in Frankfort.
“I can’t imagine a locker room anywhere that you would find
this kind of behavior let alone from elected officials in the state’s capital,”
said Bevin in reference to the legislature’s recent settlement of a lawsuit by
staff members claiming harassment by Democratic House members. “How
shameful that we’re in a situation that we had to settle such a thing.”
Bevin and other Republicans at the dinner spoke about conservative
values. “We need to stop apologizing for the Christian principles, the great
American values that make this country great,” he said to applause.
Conway, at the Graves County Democratic breakfast, accused Bevin of not applying his Christian morals to
his policies, saying that ending the Medicaid expansion that serves more than
400,000 would not be a Christian thing to do, and that voters should elect
someone who “understands that the truly Christian thing to do is to say that we
are our brother’s keeper and healthcare for our people makes us a healthier and
better society.”
Bevin said for months that he would end the Medicaid
expansion, but during and after a forum with Conway this week, he said he would
transition the expansion clients to a less expensive program, perhaps like
Indiana’s, in which clients can pay premiums to get better benefits and get refunds
if they don’t use the benefits.
Conway based his message at the Democratic breakfast in
Mayfield on whom voters could trust come November. He painted Bevin as an untrustworthy New
Englander, a similar strategy used by Republicans last year when Bevin challenged
U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell.
Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear accused Republicans of trying
to “put one over” on Kentucky citizens.
“Just last year they said, they told everybody in Kentucky
that Matt Bevin was an east coast con man and a psychological [sic] liar. A
year later, all at once, they’re telling us he’s somehow worthy of being
governor,” Beshear said. “I believe in recycling as much as anybody, but this
is ridiculous.”
He added, “The values that I was brought up with here by
my dad and mom, those values of faith, family and hard work, are the same
values that we instill in our two sons Jeff and Andrew. And now those same values are being instilled
in our grandchildren. And I’ll tell you something, when you instill those
values and you care about people, you end up being a Democrat.”
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