Bevin's social-media advantage helped make him the winner, Senate president says

By Lauren Allen and John Winn Miller
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications
This story has been updated, as indicated.

If social-media engagement is any indication, Republican Matt Bevin should win won the governor’s race partly with a big advantage on social media, state Senate President Robert Stivers said last night.by a landslide. But while social media were such an indicator for President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election, it remains to be seen whether that will hold true in Kentucky, political experts say.

Stivers made the comment in an interview on KET's election-night coverage. He couldn't be reached for further comment.

Bevin followed the lead of the leader of the opposite party. In 2012, against Republican Mitt Romney, President Barack Obama “logged twice as many Facebook 'likes' and nearly 20 times as many re-tweets as Romney, Dr. Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center, wrote on The Media Psychology Blog. “With his existing social media base and spreadable content, Obama had far superior reach.” 

Bevin’s campaign apparently got the message, because the Louisville businessman was far more active on social media during the governor’s race than his two opponents, with 50,000 Facebook likes and 12,000 Twitter followers.

Next in line is independent candidate Drew Curtis with 27,000 Facebook likes and 13,600 Twitter Followers.  That is not a surprise, given Curtis’ background as founder of a successful news-aggregation site.

Lagging far behind is Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway with 14,000 Facebook likes and 5,500 Twitter followers.

Social media are becoming greater indicators of election results because so many American adults are online now and get their news from social media.

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found in 2012 that 60 percent of adults use some form of social media, and a study released this year by The American Press Institute found that "88 percent of millennials (ages 18-34) get news from Facebook regularly."

The Pew study also found that more than a third of millennials on social media have shared political information and urged followers to vote.

Obama’s campaign team took advantage of that communications channel.

“As of election night, President Obama had 32 million Facebook fans, 21 million Twitter followers, and 259,685 YouTube views,” Daniel Burrus, a best-selling author on future trends and CEO of Burrus Associates, wrote on his blog. “On the other hand, Mitt Romney had 12 million Facebook fans, 1.7 million Twitter followers, and only 29,172 YouTube views.”

Burrus concluded that if the Romney camp made a mistake by not being more aggressive on social media. “Did social media make a difference in the outcome of the election? When you have a close race, everything matters. So with that in mind, I would answer yes,” he wrote.

Social media may not have as big an impact in the governor’s race, said Stephen Voss, associate professor of political science at the University of Kentucky.

“People who are cut off from other sources of political information and only receive their political 

tidbits through social media are the same people who are going to vote rarely if at all,” Voss said.

This group of people is not typically involved in the community or politics, he said, which could likely be the reason they do not see the importance of voting or even know there is an election.

Where social media can play a crucial role, Voss added, is in “immediacy.”

Because of the immediate impact social media can have, political campaigns can respond to anything that is thrown their way instantly through Facebook, Twitter or any other social media, Voss said.

That immediacy is one thing that convinced Curtis, founder of the irreverent news site fark.com, to run despite being a political unknown.

“I based my run on a theory: that the Internet and social media have finally made it possible for a third party candidate to win,” he wrote for Wired magazine in an essay published on election eve. “Regardless of how things turn out, I’m convinced I was absolutely correct. And I’m also convinced you’ll see more candidates like me in the near future.”

Curtis wrote that even journalists he’s talked to around the state “don’t feel they’re influencing the race much. They think that social media and the Internet in general have replaced the job they used to do.”

While it hard to measure how much influence social media will have on the election compared to television, it is clear that mixing the two is not garnering much interest.

When Conway posts his television commercials on social media, he only gets an average of 15 shares or retweets. This does not include his paid Facebook posts, which have 3,500 shares. The last advertisement that Bevin posted got 55 retweets and 212 shares on Facebook.

The candidates also exhibit different styles on their social-media accounts.

On the Facebook account Matt Bevin for Kentucky Governor in 2015 (which has 8,000 likes), the campaign posts frequently with links to Bevin’s campaign website and news about his appearances. Bevin’s main Facebook account is generally in first person and has posts directly on Facebook rather than links to sites. His Tweets are similar to his Facebook posts, just simplified for the 140 character limit. Bevin also participates in Twitter such talks as #coalpowersKY with the Kentucky Coal Association. The most personal post on his Twitter is a happy 14th birthday message to his daughter, Olivia.

Curtis gets more personal on his business page, posting things like “#MexicoSucks #mexvusa.” This was shared from his Twitter like most of his direct posts. He also frequently interacts with readers who post comments.

Conway posts many pictures of his appearances and links to articles about him and his running partner state Rep. Sannie Overly. Some of these posts are written in first person and some of them are in second person. His Twitter account has extremely similar posts, but they are designed particularly for that social media outlet. These tweets get an average of five retweets and favorites.

What all of this will mean for the Nov. 3 election is anybody’s guess. But the headline over Curtis’ Wired article made clear what he thinks the future will hold: “Someday technology will end our dumb two party system.”

Bevin doubles down on his investment to gain high office and emphasizes effort to link Conway to Obama

By Matthew Young

University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

               Republican Matt Bevin knows a lot about investing. He has had a successful career managing wealth and investments for customers. But in the last two election cycles he has invested nearly $4.8 million of his own cash on a new customer: himself. Now, with one week until voters hit the polls to determine the next governor, Bevin is really hoping for a big return on the money he has given to his two campaigns for public office.

               The latest polls show Bevin down five points to Democrat Jack Conway. This is where Bevin has found himself for most of the race, but never able to really cut into Conway’s lead.

               Now, as Bevin stares down the barrel of Tuesday, Election Day, he appears to be feeling the urgency of the race. His campaign strategy has shifted over the last two weeks to be markedly more aggressive. Content for months to run a largely positive campaign, his tone seems to be sharpening.

               There was the occasional punch thrown early on, like when Bevin told Conway at a September debate, “So much of what comes out of your mouth, Jack, is absolutely made up... You literally make lies up on the fly.” Overall, though, Bevin stayed positive in his message. He stood his ground and kept talking about his issues; Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, job creation, and fighting President Obama.

               But as the race comes down to the wire, Bevin has made a stronger foray. At the final two debates of the campaign, held Sunday at Eastern Kentucky University, and Monday at KET, Bevin repeatedly called Conway a liar, challenging his assertions and often interrupting him.

               Bevin accused Conway of lying to voters, and saying anything to get elected. He cited Conway saying Bevin would kick 400,000 people off Medicaid and does not support early childhood education Conway claiming he cut his budget by 40 percent as attorney general.

               The last two debates were outliers. Bevin has changed the tone of his campaign to attack Conway as a “rubber stamp” for President Obama. Early in the campaign Bevin did not emphasize the tactic common to Republicans over the last seven years, attacking the Democrat as a clone of Obama.

                “Jack Conway is a rubber stamp for Barack Obama. ... I am not a career politician. ... I’m a guy like so many out there who simply want better opportunity for themselves, for their families, for their state and for America,” Bevin said on the Glenn Beck Show.

               In a TV ad with unidentified people speaking, one says, “He’s just like Obama, maybe worse than Obama.”

               Most recently Bevin put out an ad titled “Stamp” mirroring his public accusations:  “Career politician Jack Conway is a rubber stamp for Obama's liberal agenda. “He’s for Obamacare, just like Obama. He’s for gun restrictions, like Obama. He’s pro-abortion, like Obama. He’s anti-coal, just like Obama. Conway even voted for Obama. Twice! Jack Conway would be Obama’s Governor.”

               Conway often notes that he is the only Democratic attorney general to join a lawsuit against the Obama administration for its regulation of greenhouse gases form coal-fired power plants.. He favors applying the federal background-check law to gun shows.

               If Conway were to “be Obama’s governor” he would have only a year and a month to do so, given that Obama leaves office in January 2017. But the attempt to link the two is clear, and it is a clear shift in strategy for Bevin. A strategy that reflects a candidate who might get zero return on a nearly $4.8 million investment.

FACT CHECK

●            In February Bevin said he would reverse the Medicaid expansion immediately, but since July he has talked about changing the program but has offered few details. However, when asked Monday by moderator Bill Goodman whether he would keep the Medicaid income limit at 138 percent of the federal poverty level, Bevin simply said, “No”.

●            A Democratic video shows Bevin saying Head Start “serves no purpose after 3rd grade,” meaning its effects disappear after that point, according to one study. In a separate video Bevin appeared to compare Head Start to brainwashing, criticizing its expansion to include 4-year-olds in a federal budget deal. Bevin said “certain regimes” use early education for political gain. “Look at these various regimes throughout history and what is it that they've always said? Give me the children. Give me the minds of the children. That's what they've always said. And it's true. Because I'll tell you, it's not coincidental or accidental that you have them now trying to get 4-year olds." However, Bevin insists he supports the overall cause of early education, and has cited a United Way program, Success by Six, as an example.

●            Bevin called Conway a liar for claiming that he cut his budget 40 percent. Bevin is correct; the attorney general proposes his budget, but the governor revises it and submits it to the legislature, which changes and approves it.

●            Referring to the Medicaid expansion, Bevin said Conway’s citation of a Deloitte study showing the Medicaid expansion will pay for itself until 2020 was proof that doesn’t know what he is talking about. The study predicts that by adding hundeds of thousands of people to the health-care system, the expansion will create jobs in health care and other industries, but its conclusions have not been proven. Gov. Steve Beshear claimed Tuesday that “Right now, it is paying for itself.”

               

ANALYSIS: Republican Governors Association re-enters ad fray, again trying to tie Conway to Obama

By Matthew Young

University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

The Republican Governors Association is back, and in a big way: $1.6 million big. After spending $2.6 million in the governor's race on ads in the summer and early fall, the RGA pulled its support for Republican candidate Matt Bevin at the end of September. While no official reason was given, it left Bevin, who has a huge fundraising deficit in his race with Democrat Jack Conway, alone in a race where he needs help. After Bevin spent almost $1 million of his own money on ads and was unable to gain any ground in the polls, the RGA stepped back in. In a race that has generated little public interest, the RGA is hoping it can tip the scales toward Bevin in the last two weeks by connecting Conway to Obama.

Ad message

A new ad, called “Trust” is set in black and white, while gloomy string music plays in the background. The top of the screen shows families and workers struggling to make due. It begins by saying: “Our families are struggling, healthcare costs have skyrocketed, too many jobs have been lost, our paychecks seem smaller while career politicians make government bigger.” The bottom of the screen is split with a black and white portrait of President Obama next to Conway with the label “Obama-Conway Record.”

Analysis

“Struggling families” and “paychecks seem smaller”: Data from the Census B ureau shows that median income in Kentucky fell by almost 3 percent from 2013 to 2014. The ad would like you to believe that Democratic policies, led by President Obama, are to blame, but the responsibility is not clear. Income has been falling for quite some time, and not just in Kentucky. Americans not in the top 10 percent of income earners are doing worse than in years past. Almost all growth in wealth since Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 has gone to the top 10 percent of income earners. Adjusted for inflation, median household incomes peaked around 2000, when George W. Bush was elected, and have been on the decline ever since. If the president in office is to blame for income and wealth performance, the RGA might not want to throw stones. The claim is true, but it certainly does not say what the RGA wants you to believe.

“Politicians make government bigger” is also a claim that deserves more scrutiny. The RGA is not so subtle in its insinuation that Conway is making government bigger; his picture is the focus of the ad as the statement is made. As evidence of this claim the RGA points to the growth in the budget of Kentucky over the last three years, and the expected growth for the next two. In those years, the state budget has grown slightly faster than the gross state product, which is the amount of goods and services produced in the state, but the attorney general doesn’t control the purse strings; the state legislature does.

“Skyrocketing health-care costs”: Health-care costs are up, but “skyrocketed” stretches too far. While horror stories of individual premiums rising as much as 40 percent are not difficult to find, data show these are outliers. An analysis by the National Conference of State Legislatures found that the average premium increase from 2014 to 2015 was effectively zero, a significant difference from annual premium increases in the previous decade of about 10 percent. Comparative numbers for 2016 will not be available for some time, but we do know that individual policies on the state’s Kynect insurance exchange are averaging increases between 5.2 percent and 12.2 percent, not including an 11 percent decrease for WellCare. Seeing a rate increase at or below the 10-year average could hardly be called skyrocketing. This claim is largely false.

“Too many jobs have been lost”: The RGA’s documentation for this point cites Kentucky’s loss of more than 1 in 10 coal jobs during the first three months of 2014. In the last three years, about half the state’s coal jobs have been lost. However, the ad does not mention coal, and unemployment in Kentucky is 5 percent, the lowest in 14 years. The total number of people with jobs in Kentucky is 13,000 fewer than five years ago, but that may not be the best way to measure it. The total nonfarm employment is more than 133,000 higher than five years ago, and 34,000 higher than last year.

"Our families can't afford four more years of the liberal policies of President Obama and career politicians like Jack Conway”: As evidence for this the RGA points to the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare. But this claim conflicts with the conclusions of an analysis done for the state by Deloitte Consulting. The study says the added tax revenue from jobs created in the medical sector, due to the increase in the number of Kentuckians with health coverage, will pay for the expansion of Medicaid through 2020. Kentucky must start paying 5 percent of the expansion cost in 2017, rising in steps to the law’s limit of 10 percent in 2020. But that is six years away. This ad cites fur years as the time frame, and the available data shows that the Medicaid expansion will not cost Kentucky in the next four years.

Conclusion: The ad breaks to a black and white video of President Obama saying his “policies are on the ballot.” A woman is shown next to Obama with her face in her hands, upset. The video is form 2014 and Obama has said nothing of the sort about this governor's race. Some voters may remember the comment from last year’s Senate race, but most are unlikely to do so. The ad closes, “Can you really trust Obama and Conway to make things better?” Should Conway become governor, his term and that of President Obama will only overlap for little more than a year and a month. As far as we know, Obama is not planning to be an adviser to the governor of Kentucky after he moves out of the White House. This is an attempt to connect Conway to Obama, but it is a stretch at best.

Candidates for attorney general question personal backgrounds and sources of support in KET forum

By Anthony Pendleton
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Monday's "Kentucky Tonight" KET debate between the candidates for attorney general included as much mud-slinging about personal backgrounds and campaign finance as it did debating of the issues. When the candidates did debate issues, they often agreed.

Republican Whitney Westerfield and Democrat Andy Beshear attacked each other for the source of their campaign funds. Beshear accused Westerfield of being "bought and paid for" and of having 95 percent of his campaign funded by “one special-interest group,” the Republican Attorneys General Association and its donors. RAGA has run more than $2.2 million worth of television commercials over the past three months. Three of the four ads have been attack ads against Beshear.

Westerfield defended himself, saying, “I can’t control that PAC.” He also took a jab at Beshear for raising $2.7 million, saying he had heard that in return, contributors were getting roads and other favors from the administration of Beshear’s father, Gov. Steve Beshear.

Some Beshear ads have noted Westerfield’s unfavorable job evaluation when he was an assistant commonwealth’s attorney in Christian County. Beshear said he had been evaluated by his peers and has been listed in America’s Best Lawyers for four years, while his opponent got a bad evaluation for “putting personal interests over his job.”

Westerfield replied, “They’re attacking me for things that are petty,” and said prosecutors had recognized him as “an outstanding legislator.”  He noted his role in passing bills to fight heroin and domestic violence.

Beshear accused Westerfield of pushing a bill for the Koch brothers of Wichita, conservative, libertarian, multi-billionaire businessmen who are major financiers of conservative groups and politicians. Westerfield said he didn't know what the bill was. Beshear replied, "It was the bill about changing the attorney general's office and the ability to use outside counsel." Westerfield then said he remembered that it was the “transparency in private attorney contracts” bill. According to the business group Partnership for Commonsense Justice, it would require a bidding process for private law firms to get contracts from the attorney general.

Beshear claimed that Westerfield doesn't support the bill for transparency, but because of outside influence. "He was pushed by one of the lobbyists for one of the main Koch brothers groups here in Kentucky to do that, and he's received even a direct PAC contribution from them," Beshear said.

Westerfield said that if elected, he would "increase the litigation intensity of the office" against not only the federal government, but the state as well. Asked after the debate how the state’s chief lawyer could sue the state, Westerfield noted that in 2007, then-Attorney General Greg Stumbo sued then-Gov. Ernie Fletcher for appointing too many Republicans as trustees of the University of Kentucky and University of Louisville.

The candidates agreed on restoring voting rights for felons who have served their sentences. Westerfield noted that some legislators want a waiting period for restoration, but he's "not as married" to that as they are. "Once you've served your sentence, I'm inclined to be prepared to let you have your voting rights back," he said.

Both said they're against legalizing recreational marijuana, but offered different conditions for approval of medicinal marijuana. Beshear said it would need to “go through the same FDA process that all other medicines do.” Westerfield said he would consider supporting medicinal marijuana if “it was narrowly tailored, and it'd have to be some years down the road - after Johns Hopkins, or the Mayo Clinic, or some well-established medical professionals in the field, did studies that show it produces some results.”

The Mayo Clinic grades marijuana's effectiveness in treating certain conditions, such as chronic pain, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy. Every condition gets a grade of B or C.

Bevin, Conway have first televised, one-on-one debate

By Cheyene Miller and Matt Young
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Neither of the two major party candidates made a large impact with the first televised head-to-head debate in the governor’s race, four weeks before the Nov. 3 election.

Republican Matt Bevin and Democrat Jack Conway both threw plenty of punches, but neither landed with the force they had probably hoped. They broke little new ground on the issues during Tuesday night’s debate at Centre College in Danville.

In a race that has struggled to gain attention or interest from voters, both candidates took to the stage to press repeat on their record players of political statements.

One of the few times the debate elicited a response from the audience came when Bevin said he wants to make it easier and more attractive for businesses in Kentucky to open. “We will, indeed, un-constipate Frankfort,” Bevin said. “You can take that to the bank.”

That line won applause, but so did Conway’s reply.

“I prefer to say I’m going to streamline it, rather than un-constipate it,” said Conway, who also said Kentucky is number two in the nation in small business creation per capita.

Bevin said changes need to be made to make Kentucky more competitive and he would push “right to work” legislation, which would outlaw labor contracts that require workers to pay union dues. Both Tennessee and Indiana have these laws, and Bevin argued that they put Kentucky at a competitive disadvantage for attracting business.

“For those of you that are struggling to find gainful employment, how is that per capita ratio thing working for you?” asked Bevin, who also said Kentucky currently has 71,000 fewer jobs than at the beginning of Conway’s term as attorney general.

Bevin opened by touting his business career, saying he was the only one on stage who had “been the executive of anything.” He added that of the two candidates, he was the only one who ever ran a business, created a job or made payroll.

Conway cast himself as a fiscal conservative, saying he cut his office’s budget by 40 percent and was the only Democratic attorney general in the country who sued the Environmental Protection Agency over regulations on coal.

The candidates reiterated their positions on under-funding of state pensions, perhaps the most critical long-term issue facing Kentucky lawmakers.

“We have to make changes or nobody will get what’s been promised to them,” said Bevin, who advocated moving pension recipients to a defined contribution plan, similar to a 401(k) style savings plan. This creates a problem with the Kentucky Teachers Retirement System because teachers are not eligible to receive social security, and risk outliving their 401(k).

Conway said the state legislature has made the proper fixes in previous years and the systems can be solvent if the minimum payment, known as ARC, was made by the legislature — something that has not consistently happened for over a decade.

The soundbites got serious when the candidates were asked about the recent shooting at an Oregon community college that left nine people dead. The question introduced the topic of gun control, which often follows in the wake of mass shootings.

“We have to take a good, hard look at mental illness,” said Conway, who said that he does not favor stricter gun regulations or allowing teachers to be armed in schools.

Bevin said he is also against stricter gun regulations, and said he favored allowing armed teachers in school. He noted that he, his wife, his running mate Jenean Hampton and her husband are proud gun owners.

When Bevin and Conway were directly questioned each other, Conway continued to focus on Bevin’s refusal to release his tax returns, an unofficial tradition for Kentucky candidates for governor. Bevin said he will not release his tax returns, and noted once again that he is not legally required to do so.

Bevin took the opportunity to question Conway for taking money from political groups with anti-coal agendas, to which Conway replied he has accepted money from people he later put in jail.

In their closing statements, the candidates told voters to ask themselves who they trust to run their state.

“I don’t feel the need to lie about Jack Conway,” said Bevin, referring to the millions of dollars in attack advertising against him. He emphasized his business career as a qualification for the governor’s office.

Conway said his experience as attorney general qualified him for the job. “I understand Kentucky,” said Conway, of Louisville. “I have a plan for Kentucky, and I’ve delivered for Kentucky.”

The most recent Bluegrass Poll, released on Sept. 30, showed Conway with a small edge at 42 percent of potential votes compared to Bevin’s 37 percent. Seven percent said they would vote for independent candidate Drew Curtis and 15 percent are undecided.

Curtis did not meet the organizers' criteria for inclusion in the debate, but was in the debate hall and answered reporters' questions after the hour-long debate. Today the founder of social-networking news site fark.com published an essay questioning the need for political parties.

The debate was sponsored by Centre, AARP and WAVE-TV, Louisville, and was also broadcast on stations in Lexington and Northern Kentucky, and by out-of state stations serving northeastern Kentucky and the Paducah and Owensboro regions.

Bevin turns up the heat, during debate and afterward

By Matthew Young
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

In a governor’s race that has been conspicuous for its relative silence, Republican Matt Bevin is turning up the heat on Democrat Jack Conway.

Matt Bevin and Jack Conway
(Lexington Herald-Leader photos)

Content for weeks to ride the wave of conservative anger and frustration over County Clerk Kim Davis’ fight against gay marriage in Rowan County, Bevin is now aiming directly at Conway, the two-term state attorney general.

The most spirited attack came in Tuesday night’s Bellarmine University debate when Bevin called Conway, in no uncertain terms, a liar.

That came after Conway accused Bevin of saying he would like to see the road fund in Kentucky – in dire need of cash – drained all the way to zero, then have it audited. Bevin’s anger was palpable in his response:

“First of all, so much of what comes out of your mouth, Jack, is absolutely made up. I have never once called for letting anything go to zero and then auditing it. You literally make lies up on the fly. So I would challenge those of you watching, check carefully with the facts.”

The Conway campaign later cited a Beattyville Enterprise article from last year’s U.S. Senate primary in which Bevin said government public-works projects have "served their purpose," but could not provide any evidence that Bevin wanted the highway fund to fall to zero.

Bevin lashed back at several attacks.

He is still fighting off claims that he was delinquent on taxes, something fact-checkers largely cleared him of early in the Senate primary against Sen. Mitch McConnell.

A recent Conway ad shows Bevin saying the Farm Bill was “an insult to farmers.” The screen then splits and shows him saying that was “a misrepresentation of what I said.”

Bevin has a case, since the “insult” he spoke about was the bill’s longstanding non-agriculture provisions, and the money it funneled to big agribusiness.

The ad also says Bevin told one group that early childhood education “after the age of nine serves no purpose,” then shows him denying that he opposes early childhood education.

While Bevin has said Head Start’s benefits to children disappear after the third grade, Head Start and early childhood education are not exactly the same.

More clearly, Bevin has backtracked on the expansion of Medicaid in Kentucky to include more than 400,000 people. After he said he would end the expansion, and Conway accused him of being callous, he denied saying he would end it and said he would seek a less expensive alternative, like Indiana’s.

The frustration seems to have taken its toll on Bevin. Tuesday night’s debate was not the only time he directly attacked Conway.

In an interview with Kentucky Public Radio, Bevin told host Ryland Barton, “Jack Conway supports the idea of bankrupting the coal industry.” Conway notes that he is the only Democratic attorney general who has sued to block the Obama administration’s regulation of greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants.

While Bevin may lack evidence to back up this attack, it suggests he will keep up the heat as the race heats up.

Perhaps the most personal attack from Bevin was about race.

Bevin, who has adopted four black children from Ethiopia and chose Jenean Hampton, a black conservative activist, as his running mate for lieutenant governor, used race to question a lack of action from Conway on Gov. Steve Beshear’s appointment to university boards.

“I would question whether or not it's racially motivated that our governor and attorney general have no qualm with, even though its statutorily required, having no blacks on the University of Louisville board,” he said in the debate. Conway has said he would correct that.

Returning to his favorite argument, about the Rowan County clerk’s stand against gay marriage, and Conway’s non-appeal of a ruling that led to the Supreme Court’s legalization of it, Bevin said, “We have an attorney general who is once again turning a blind eye. We’re quick to put a Kim Davis in jail for not doing her job; we tell her to quit or do her job. We have an attorney general that repeatedly does not do his job, and a governor in the same boat. We cannot have a double standard in this state."

Conway replied that the law gives him discretion not to appeal, an appeal would have been futile and wasteful, and “the good-paying jobs of the future” will come to states that are inclusive. “I think Kim Davis went to jail because she defied a federal court order. I have sympathy for her, but we are a nation of laws.”

Matt Young is a student in Covering the Governor's Race, a course in the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications, taught by Journalist In Residence John Winn Miller and Associate Extension Professor Al Cross.

In a quiet race, gay marriage steals the focus from other issues; first debate with all 3 candidates is Tuesday night

By Matt Young
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

In 2004 Kentucky voters passed by a 3-1 margin a state constitutional amendment defining marriage to be between one man and one woman. You’d be forgiven for assuming the initiative was on the ballot again this year.

The governor's race between Republican businessman Matt Bevin and Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway has been conspicuously quiet. “People like to know their governor, and I don't think either of these guys have done that with the people of Kentucky yet,” House Speaker Greg Stumbo told cn|2’s Pure Politics.

The lack of focus on the Nov. 3 election has left Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis to fill the attention the news media and voters.

Bevin called a federal judge’s jailing of Davis for defying his order to issue marriage licenses “utterly ridiculous,” saying that there is no need to jail someone for First Amendment beliefs, and called on Conway and Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear to take action to remove clerks’ names from marriage licenses. They said the law doesn’t allow them to do that.

Conway has exercised caution, waiting until after Davis was jailed to make his first comment. He said on Twitter, "I understand that passions are high on both sides of this issue, but we are nation of laws and no one can defy an order from a federal judge."

Asked by the county attorney to appoint a special prosecutor to look into an official-misconduct cases against Davis, Conway first did not respond. After Davis was released on condition that she not interfere with her deputy clerks’ issuance of marriage licenses, Conway said he would not name a special prosecutor because the matter was in federal court.

Conway has been largely mute lately, as he concentrates on raising money and wondering how much personal wealth Bevin will put into the race. His public appearances and media outreach have been almost non-existent since the Aug. 1 Fancy Farm Picnic.

Traditionally the governor’s race heats up after the Labor Day weekend, with a more intense schedule of debates and forums. Conway and Bevin will have their first face-off with independent candidate Drew Curtis at Bellarmine University in Louisville at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 15. The debate will be televised on Louisville’s WHAS-11 and Lexington’s WKYT-27; it is sponsored by the stations and their newspaper partners in the Bluegrass Poll, The Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader.

The latest Bluegrass Poll, taken in late July, showed Conway leading Bevin 43 to 38 percent, with an error margin of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points (which applies to both numbers). Curtis had 8 percent.

Each side has turned up the rhetorical volume, with new TV ads.

Americans for Prosperity, a ”super PAC” supported by the Koch Brothers of Wichita, is attacking Conway for his support of federal health reform, or “Obamacare,” which it blamed for "a crisis in our hospitals” and “skyrocketing” insurance premiums.

The Kentucky Hospital Association says Obamacare has been a small part of its problems, but worries about future impacts. A national analysis by the National Conference of State Legislatures found that the average premium increase from 2014 to 2015 was effectively zero, while premium increases in the last decade have averaged about 10 percent. Kentucky rate increases for 2016 range from a 25 percent increase by the Kentucky Health Cooperative, which has sold most of the policies on the state’s Kynect insurance exchange, to an 11 percent decrease from WellCare. Other increases are between 5.2 and 12.2 percent.

The Republican Governors Association has been attacking Conway along the same lines, while Bevin hasn’t run ads of his own. Conway’s first attack ad builds on the “East Coast con-man” moniker that U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell applied to Bevin last year in their primary battle.

The ad shows Bevin making statements on the campaign trail, then apparently walking them back. It starts out showing Bevin saying, “I was opposed to the Farm Bill because it was an insult to farmers.” The screen then splits and shows him saying that that was “a misrepresentation of what he said.” He has a case; he objected to the bill’s spending for non-farm programs (most of its funds are for nutrition) and the money it funneled to big agribusiness.

The ad gets right that Bevin has backtracked on his opposition to the Medicaid expansion in Kentucky. He initially said that he would end it, but now says he would scale it back.

Beneath the fray is Curtis, CEO of Fark.com. Without the big money that comes with a party nomination, Curtis has been unable to air TV ads, but being an independent underdog comes with its advantages; he can ignore partisanship, and be free to talk about the issues. Curtis has released the most detailed plan to address the state’s underfunded pension system.

As the race heats up expect all three candidates to address other important issues. There will be sparring over the tax code, and how to create additional revenue the state needs; education, including the Common Core standards; and “right to work” legislation, which forbids employers from requiring union membership as a condition of employment.

However, if this summer can be used as a crystal ball for the fall, expect Bevin to continue his defense of Davis, and Conway’s refusal to appeal the gay-marriage ruling that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. State law allowed Conway to do that, but Bevin accuses him of hypocrisy.

Candidates use religious values: Bevin on Rowan clerk, Conway on Bevin's attitude toward Medicaid expansion

By Cheyene Miller
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

The big job at stake this year is Kentucky governor, but the headlines and sound bites suggest that the Nov. 3 election is about religious values.

In a race that doesn’t seem to be gathering much public interest, Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway and Republican businessman Matt Bevin are using religion to appeal to Kentucky voters, who remain a highly religious voting base.

Bevin is using Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis’s jailing for refusing to issue marriage licenses to his advantage, saying Davis’s religious liberties and First Amendment rights are being violated.

Bevin criticizes Conway, who refused to appeal last year’s federal ruling that Kentucky’ same-sex marriage ban was unconstitutional, for not doing his job.

Conway said last year that he would not appeal because the lower-court judge got it right, an appeal would be on the wrong side of history, and good-paying jobs are going to states that allow marriage equality.

The independent candidate, Fark.com CEO Drew Curtis, says clerks have the right to their own personal beliefs but must follow the law as public officials.

The Davis situation did not mark the first time Bevin spoke about Christian values, as he made it one of his primary talking points during Fancy Farm Picnic weekend July 31-Aug. 1. “We need to stop apologizing for the Christian principles, the great American values that make this country great,” he said at a Republican dinner.

Conway has found his religious angle with the Medicaid expansion and Kynect, the Kentucky health insurance market, established under federal health reform. The two functions have given coverage to about 521,000 people and helped Kentucky reduce its uninsured rate more than almost any state in the nation.

In his speech at Fancy Farm, Conway criticized Bevin for not applying his Christian values to his views on health care. He said 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 has said that he would dismantle Kynect, but has backtracked on plans to abolish the Medicaid expansion, saying he would adopt 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.

In addition to health care, Conway and Bevin have also sparred on Kentucky’s pension system, which is considered one of the worst in the country. 

Bevin cites his experience at managing pension-fund assets, but was unfamiliar with a key facet of the state’s pension system when questioned about it this summer. He advocates moving away from Kentucky’s current pension system in favor of a 401k-style system and offering incentives to current employees who switch.

Conway says he is committed to making the pension payments required by a recent law, and wants to find a designated source of revenue for that.

Curtis proposes issuing a $5 billion bond, structured as a line of credit, that can be tapped in years when pension funds aren’t keeping up with their obligations, and pay back the debt in years when it runs ahead.

Conway is focusing his campaign strategy on education and Bevin’s statement in the Republican primary debate that early childhood education’s effects disappear after the third grade.

Conway released his education plan on Tuesday, proposing early education for 3-year-olds with parents making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level (the same level as those who qualify for the Medicaid expansion) to during his first year in office, and all 3- and 4-year-olds whose parents make up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level by the end of his first term.

Bevin is more conservative on education and favors charter schools.

On television, the candidates and their supporters have questioned each other’s integrity.  Conway has used recycled verbal jabs from the 2014 Senate Republican primary, in which Sen. Mitch McConnell’s campaign called Bevin an “East Coast con man” and a “pathological liar.” He also criticizes Bevin for not releasing his tax returns, which Bevin says he will do if elected.

Bevin hasn’t run TV ads in the general election, but outside groups supporting him are trying to tie Conway to President Obama,

All three candidates have female lieutenant-governor running mates, Democrat Sannie Overly, Republican Jenean Hampton and independent Heather Curtis, the candidate’s wife. Hampton would be Kentucky’s first black statewide elected official.

The most recent Bluegrass Poll, in late July, had Conway leading with 43 percent of respondents, Bevin with 38 percent and Curtis with 8 percent.

The first debate with all three candidates will be held Tuesday at Bellarmine University in Louisville, from 7 to 8 p.m. ET. It will be televised and streamed by WHAS-TV and WKYT-TV, and is also sponsored by The Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader. The four news outlets sponsor the Bluegrass Poll.