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.

As Bevin and Conway debate Medicaid, taxes and truth, Curtis gets the limelight

By Jerry Seale, Kevin Erpenbeck and Ben Johnson

University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

              

With seven weeks to the election, all eyes were initially on Democrat Jack Conway and Republican Matt Bevin during the gubernatorial debate in Louisville Tuesday night -- but independent candidate Drew Curtis may have stolen the show.

In a debate that covered a wide range of issues, Curtis got off to a quick start separating himself from the other bickering candidates with jokes and a sharp focus on how he would fix the state’s problems.

Conway criticized Bevin for his stance on Medicaid that he says would kick half-a-million people off Medicaid, the federal-state program to provide health care for the poor.

Bevin, who backed off that stand in late July, said Tuesday night that he would apply for a federal waiver that would let Kentucky customize Medicaid to save money.

Curtis said he is in favor of keeping the Medicaid expansion as it is, citing a state study that it will pay for itself by adding health-care jobs.

When Conway chided businessman Bevin for not releasing his tax returns -- insinuating Bevin has something to hide, Bevin called his claims a “smoke screen.” He said voters should “pay attention to what really happens, not what comes out of Conway’s mouth.”

When Conway claimed Bevin said Kentucky should “let the road funds go to zero and audit it for the last 10 years,” Bevin hotly denied it.

“So much of what comes out of your mouth, Jack, is absolutely made up,” Bevin replied. “I’ve never once called for letting anything go to zero and auditing it. You literally just make lies up on the fly.”

The Conway campaign did not respond to requests for documentation of the claim.

Another contentious exchange was over the jailing of Rowan County Kim Davis for ignoring a federal court order to issue marriage licenses after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.

Bevin said that trampled Davis’s freedom of religion, and Gov. Steve Beshear could have avoided the controversy with an executive order.

Conway, who is the state’s attorney general and has said Beshear does not have the power, said he sympathized with Davis but she needed to follow federal court orders.

Once again Curtis, standing between the other two men at Bellarmine University lecterns, drew laughter with his response.

“I think you all are both wrong,” he said. “It is the job of the executive to back up even the laws they don’t like.”

The three also differed significantly on how to deal with the economy, particularly in Eastern Kentucky.

“We need a governor who can take a look forward and anticipate problems before they actually occur,” Curtis said. “I don’t think we currently have that, no offense to these guys here. I don’t think it’s been done in American politics before. That is the thing I’m looking to change.”

Bevin said the problem isn’t just in Eastern Kentucky, but the whole state. “If there’s a hole in the boat, all our feet are going to get wet.” he said.

Conway endorsed the Shaping Our Appalachian Region initiative of Beshear and 5th District U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers.

On education funding, Conway said it would be a top priority, but Curtis said he couldn’t address that issue until the state’s pension problems are fixed and its finances are in better shape. He predicted twice that a recession is coming.

Bevin did not address elementary and secondary education, but said higher education needed to be better stewards of state funds and do more to prepare people for jobs.

That answer was a theme for many of Bevin’s answers in the debate.

The candidates had different opinions on how to shore state pension plans, which are the second most underfunded in the nation.

Conway said the problem is starting to take care of itself and will take some time for the full effects to be seen. To the contrary, Bevin said, the state is only “digging deeper and deeper into the hole,” and that major change will be needed.

Curtis has proposed his own plan, which would involve a line of credit, which could be tapped into when needed and paid back when times were better. Bevin criticized this plan, and said officials in Frankfort should not be trusted with such a system.

Conway was asked how he would fund the early-childhood education plan he proposed this month. He cited his record in office, saying he has returned over $300 million to the treasury, as assurance that he can find the money. Bevin and Curtis were skeptical.

Conway also pointed to his work against drug abuse and said he would put a plan in place to bring more treatment and drug education to Kentucky.

Curtis endorsed a statewide needle exchange program but Conway only backed the current local option, and Bevin did not provide a clear answer to the question.

The candidates found a rare moment of agreement on expunging the records and restoring voting rights for non-violent drug offenders who have served their time.

Fact-checking statements in debate: Conway can't back up his Road Fund claim

By Anthony Pendleton
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

As the candidates for governor covered numerous topics in an hour-long debate Tuesday night, some questionable statements were presented as facts. Here are a list of statements those that have been fact-checked.

Democrat Jack Conway claimed Republican Matt Bevin said the Road Fund should “go to zero.” We could find no evidence that Bevin said this. The Conway campaign cited several Bevin statements about infrastructure but none of them had the "zero" element or mentioned the Road Fund. The closest was a remark during last year's Senate race, when Bevin said the time for government involvement in public works projects had ended, apparently meaning the federal government.

When Herald-Leader political writer Sam Youngman asked Bevin about his change in position on the Medicaid expansion – from ending it immediately to how he would tweak the program, Conway replied as if Bevin had not changed his position, calling Bevin “callous” and acting as if he still wants to end the expansion.

When Conway said Bevin's plan to put all new state pension plan members into 401(k) accounts wouldn't work for teachers because they don't participate in Social Security, Bevin said "We can change that." But that would require the state to match teachers' payroll deductions for Social Security.

Conway said he’s “been supported by the NRA in the past.” Bevin said Conway has a “C” rating with the NRA. According to RealClearPolitics, Conway received an “A” rating from the NRA Political Victory Fund in 2011 for his attorney general re-election campaign. According to VoteSmart.org, the NRA gave Conway a 43 percent rating in 2015. UPDATE: The State Journal of Frankfort confirmed that Conway has a C rating.

Bevin said his running mate, Jenean Hampton of Bowling Green, is the first African-American woman “to ever run for governor or lieutenant governor.” In 1999, Naliah Jumoke-Yarbrough of Louisville was the gubernatorial nominee of the Natural Law Party.

Bevin said coal “powers 90 percent of the electricity in this room,” but then said “38 percent of the electricity in this state” comes from coal. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 92 percent of Kentucky’s net-electrical generation came from coal in 2014. The EIA says 39 percent of the nation’s electricity was coal-generated in 2014.

The big words and the best quotes from the debate

The best quotes from the candidates at tonight's first debate between the three candidates for governor of Kentucky, as compiled by Megan Ingros of the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications:

Democrat Jack Conway: "I have an opponent here, Mr. Bevin, who said that we ought to let the Road Fund go to zero and audit it."

Republican Matt Bevin: “So much of what comes out of your mouth, Jack, is literally made up. I have never once called for letting anything go to zero and auditing it. You literally make lies up on the fly.”

Conway, later: "He said what he said." (Conway and his campaign did not respond to email and telephone requests for documentation of his claim.)

Drew Curtis, independent: "I haven't talked to any coal companies because they don't invite me to any debates they don't announce. I don't know why, probably because I won't sell them laws."

Conway: Mr. Bevin is fond of going around asking, 'Who do you trust, who do you trust to be the next governor?' I don't think you trust someone who has had his own problem with tax issues and won't release his tax returns."

Bevin: "It's interesting that when Jack Conway tries to get you to focus, on things like, my tax returns, which are not required to be released. It is a distraction from that fact that he did not defend this state's constitution. It's a distraction from the fact that he doesn't support life, which two-thirds of Kentuckians do. It's a distraction from the fact that he refuses to enforce the requirement from the University of Louisville board among others, to be racially and politically balanced."

Curtis: “So, I’ll actually answer this question. … I’m not sure why anyone wants them, but I’m okay with releasing my tax returns.”

Curtis, on making the Capitol safer for women:  “I’m a firm believer in diversity, and I think I’m just going to leave it at that because I don’t feel like attacking anyone right now.”