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[videogamer]

It's no secret in Kentucky that Sen. Jim Bunning, a Republican who was expected to coast to reelection on Nov. 2, has been acting strange. Over the past few months, Bunning has angrily pushed away reporters, exchanged testy words with a questioner at a Rotary Club and stuck to brief, heavily scripted remarks at campaign events, delivered in a halting monotone. The former major league baseball star now travels the Bluegrass State with a special police escort, at taxpayer expense. His explanation? Al-Qaida may be out to get him.

More substantively, the incumbent would agree to only one debate with his Democratic challenger, state Sen. Daniel Mongiardo. And the rules Bunning negotiated were bizarrely rigid: The encounter could not be live; the taping has to occur in the afternoon, not the evening; no audience could be present in the studio; and, under threat of legal action, Mongiardo could not use any sound clips or video of Bunning's debate performance in campaign advertisements.

Saying falsely that he was needed in Washington this week for Senate votes, Bunning tore up his own carefully crafted debate agreement and refused to return to Kentucky on Monday for his one scheduled debate with Mongiardo. It was to have taken place at 2:30 p.m. Monday in the Lexington, Ky., studio of WKYT-TV. Instead, Bunning insisted on "debating" via satellite from the womblike conditions of the Republican National Committee headquarters studio in Washington.

The senator refused to allow a member of the Kentucky media to be present at the RNC studio to monitor whether Bunning was receiving assistance with his answers, according to Mongiardo campaign manager Kim Geveden and WKYT news director Jim Ogle. And Bunning refused to engage reporters via satellite in a previously agreed upon post-debate news conference, insisting instead that his 15 minutes of answering questions occur by telephone, without accompanying video footage.

Until recently, the Kentucky Senate race was shaping up to be an easy home run for Bunning. In mid-August, a Survey USA poll conducted on behalf of two Kentucky television stations showed the incumbent with a 24-point lead over Mongiardo, a surgeon from Hazard, Ky. Bunning had raised a vast amount of money, with $4 million in the bank in June, compared with the Democrat's $300,000. The race was considered so over that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of Senate Democrats, wasn't spending any money in Kentucky, preferring instead to channel funds to races where Democrats appeared to have at least half a chance.

Then, slowly, the dynamic began to change. At first, Bunning's gruffness with reporters, odd statements and apparent discomfort with public appearances merely sparked gossip. Then the incidents began making news. In February, he "shocked many Louisville civic leaders," as the Louisville Courier-Journal put it, by declaring at a chamber of commerce luncheon that one of two new bridges the city had expected to build with federal funds would be delayed because northern Kentucky needed the money more. Not only was Bunning's statement factually wrong, but it forced the Louisville-area Republican who had worked to secure the bridge funding, U.S. Rep. Anne Northup, to scramble to reassure business leaders. Bunning was "confused" and "mistaken," she told reporters. Bunning at first denied he had made the remark, then admitted he had after he was told his talk had been recorded.

Likewise, Bunning at first denied in April that he had said at a private Republican Party event that the dark-complexioned Mongiardo looked like one of Saddam Hussein's sons and "even dresses like them, too." He admitted making what at best was a bad joke, at worst an ethnic slur, only after realizing it had been videotaped.

Meantime, a new Survey USA poll conducted Oct. 6-8 showed that Bunning's once commanding lead has been cut in half, to 11 points. The Mongiardo campaign's private polling shows the race even closer, to an eight-point difference. Then on Saturday came the news that Bunning would not appear with Mongiardo at the Lexington debate.

WKYT news director Ogle told me that the Bunning campaign had phoned the station on Saturday saying the senator would be tied up in Washington all week and unable to travel back to Kentucky for Monday's 2:30 p.m. debate taping. (The "tied up in Washington" explanation turned out to be a lie: The Senate's last recorded vote of the week took place at 12:30 p.m. on Monday. There are no more recorded votes for the week, the Senate Republican cloakroom confirmed.)

Negotiating through Ogle, the Mongiardo campaign offered to reschedule the debate. Bunning said no. Mongiardo offered to fly to Washington to accommodate the senator. Bunning said no. Then, when Bunning insisted on appearing via satellite from the RNC headquarters, Mongiardo asked him to allow a neutral observer from the Kentucky news media to be present to ensure that Bunning didn't receive assistance with his answers. Bunning said no.

"I've worked in this business for 25 years, and I've never run into this kind of situation, so locked in stone," Ogle said. "They [the Bunning campaign] say it's got to be at 2:30 p.m. Monday. And that's it."

The debate was taped Monday and will air Wednesday evening, but only in Lexington and in Bowling Green and Hazard, where WKYT has sister stations; the rest of Kentucky will have to read about it in newspapers.

This incident will surely dog Bunning in the last three weeks of the campaign. In his closing and opening statements, the senator's eyes appeared to be scanning text, prompting reporters to ask in the post-debate news conference whether he was using a teleprompter. Bunning declined to answer, saying only that he has stuck to the rules, apparently referring to the original agreement that he himself violated by appearing from Washington. That agreement said the candidates could use "notes" during the debate.

And this guy is supposedly leading by 8-11 points
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/12/bunning_kentucky/

 

[Seth C]

Well, I know who I won't be voting for next month. Bunning may be getting crazy in his old age.

 

[JackFrost2012]

And this guy STILL has a lead, however small? What is wrong with people.

 

[Incognito]

did anyone watch the debate on meet the press for the colorado senate seat?

pete coors is an idiot.

 

[videogamer]

And this guy STILL has a lead, however small? What is wrong with people.

8-11 points looks pretty good to me...

 

[fennec fox]

He pitched a perfect game for the Phillies! I'll forgive 'im!

 

[RaymondCarver]

 

[Mermandala]

I was curious so I looked up Mongiardo to see if Bunning had a point about Saddam and Sons... here is the side-by-side:

<------->

I guess if you apply hillbilly logic they look close enough, clever to shave off his stache to evade those tricky wildcats. Back to Bunning then, his face is sooo pink and yet his hands are a ghastly latex glove yellow! Those hands have clearly been in the picklin' jar too long - perhaps trying to retreive his brain...

Jeebus, he looks like a living WarioWare party game.

 

[Tritroid]

Wow, I didn't expect to see a thread devoted to my state and hometown. 0_0

I used to live in Paris, KY, and I still go there like every other day. I'm living in Georgetown now though and going to UK in Lexington.

And yes, we have fucked up senators running. But that's nothing new to us since it was our govenor (Fletcher) who caused the evacuation scare in Washington when his plane flew in restricted zones.