Fancy Farm 2009: Plastic Spoons and Loons

It was great to be back at Fancy Farm on Saturday, the one-of-a-kind political circus where Kentucky politics tends to show its best and worst aspects every year.

This year's "episode" was largely a showcase of fresh blood from both parties. On the Republican side we had youngster Trey Grayson taking over the reigns from Jim Bunning (though still blatantly puppeted by ole Mitch). For the Democrats, the two youngsters were the squeaky clean MySpace Batman and Ken doll Jack Conway, and the eyebrow waxing hetero-hunting-coal-doctor Dan Mongiardo. Whatever the outcome of the 2010 Senate race, we're pretty much assured that at least 2 of these 3 will be among their party's leaders for the next generation.

But that "serious" stuff is just a slice of Fancy Farm. The stars of the show are typically the characters and hacks and political theater/bullshit that comes with it. This is what makes Fancy Farm truly unique. Other states may not rank at the bottom of the country in their fancy "health" and "literacy", but damnit, we put on one hell of a political circus every year that nobody else can match in entertainment and absurdity.

Yea.... we might want to think about trading, though.

*****

LEO reporter Jonathan Meador and I made the trek down to Fancy Farm from Louisville early Sunday morning, first arriving at the Fayette County Democrats Breakfast at the "Happy House". We were amongst the first to arrive before the place was swarmed with KY politicos great and small. Showing up, in no particular order: Jack Conway, Dan and Dancin' Allie Mongiardo, Crit Luallen, Jerry Abramson, Coach Joe B. Hall, new KDP chair Charlie Moore, new KDP Communications Director Liz Fossett, Governor's Chief of Staff Adam Edelen, Mongiardo clownish hack Kim Geveden, Mongiardo staffer Lisa Tanner, Conway staffer Allison Martin, and about 10 independent political consultant-types.

My gameplan for the day was to ask direct uncomfortable questions to these folks, then (most likely) listen to them veer off into their talking points. Once they would finish, I would smile and say "that was a smart political answer, good job". Then, I would quickly look around me, panicking that Ben Chandler was coming over to poke me in the chest.

Adam Edelen was the first politico I talked to. I expressed my regret that Governor Beshear could not make it here this year, then asked "when is Gov. Beshear going to go out on the road and start campaigning for Dan Mongiardo? I haven't really heard anything from him on that since he sent out that email a long time ago". Edelen answered that the governor is very busy right now and mostly focused on the upcoming state senate special election, and that he can focus on other things once that is past.

I nodded and said, "you know I'm just fucking with you, right?".

Edelen: "Yes. Yes I do."

I also asked him how the locals are treating elitist Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson (pssst... he's in The Tribe!) since he's been down here. Adam said he's been getting along well with everybody, and gave a rather blistering critique of people who try to play up division between Louisville and the rest of the state. I suggested he share those thoughts with Dan Mongiardo, and kind of got the impression that he's been there, done that. Those impressions were strengthened once Dan's Fancy Farm speech was over without any demonization of Louisville.

Edelen was also very confident about the special election coming up, as he said Webb was looking good.

From what I gathered from the Louisville politicos there, the Mayor's race to fill Jerry's seat will be a doozy. Running Tandy's campaign will be Jim Cauley, running King's will be Mark Riddle, and running Greg Fisher's will be Kim Geveden. 2 legit political heavyweights, and a... well, a heavyweight clown.

Speaking of Kim Geveden, he made a beeline over to me to give me some "juice". "Hey, how'd you like to see a video of Jack Conway saying that he's a big supporter of mountaintop removal mining?" Right. Sure. Send it to me, Kim. No surprise, he hasn't done so.

I spoke with Charlie Moore, who seemed like a friendly fellow. I must say that after a year plus of overwhelming incompetence in the KDP, as well as open hostility towards yours truly, I am actually really optimistic about the way things are starting to look within the organization. They've hired some young blood who have some fire and ambition, and don't appear to have their head firmly placed up their ass. Liz Fossett will be an infinite improvement over the assclownery of Thom Karmik, and from everything I heard Saturday, new ED Kyle Cox is somebody who knows how a modern campaign works. We may actually have a functional Democratic Party in our state soon, folks... fingers crossed.

Conway, Mongiardo and Abramson all got up and spoke to the crowd for about a minute, and then everybody rushed off to the Main Event.

As Meador and I walked into the picnic/festivites/BBQ extravaganza, we first ran into a very excited Rand Paul supporter handing out lit. I asked him what he thought about the gold standard. He then proceeded to play Ron Paul madlibs for about 5 minutes without taking a breath. I interrupted him once to introduce myself and say my name and that didn't even phase him for a second, he kept right on going. Once he took a breath, I asked him if he had ever seen old James Bond movies. No? You haven't seen Goldfinger? I told him he should take a look at it, as our new gold standard might face a security threat from terrorists or evil supervillains. He said he'd definitely check it out.

Without a doubt, the candidate with the biggest supporter presence at Fancy Farm was Rand Paul. This didn't really surprise me at all, as Paul demographics tend to be heavily oversampled at events and online forums, but what did surprise me is that every one of them I talked to said they were from Kentucky. If they had to bus in supporters, I certainly couldn't find any evidence of it.

Without a doubt, the best character I ran into all day was a Rand Paul supporter. Meador and I must have talked to him for 15 minutes, because he was endlessly fascinating. He was passing out Paul lit, as well as trillion dollar bills with Berneike's face on them. He explained how Rand Paul was going to fight against the illumanati, who were trying to impose a One World Order. He also talked about how Obama's health care plan had a secret provision for killing old people. And, of course, he was also a very dedicated birther. He urged us to go spread these truths to our readers, so we can help them prevent the Godless Tryanny that Obama and the Illuminati have in store for us all. So, yea, look out for that stuff, kiddies.

As far as the rest of the Rand Paul supporters, I will say this: every single one that I asked was a birther. Every one. Including... Rand Paul himself. I asked Rand if he thought Obama was born in the US and he said he didn't know. I followed up just to make sure, and he clearly stated that didn't know if he was, then awkwardly turned away from me and walked to the outside of the stage and stood in front of it. It was... bizarre. And I don't say that in a partisan sense, because I want Rand to give Grayson as much hell as possible in this primary, but... it was uncomfortable.

Trey Grayson, to his credit, is not a birther. I asked him the same question and he stated clearly that Obama was born in the US and he has no doubts about his citizenship or eligibility for president. I asked him if he supports DOMA, and he said yes, adding that Clinton put it into law. (Free advice to Trey: during the Republican primary, having the word "Clinton" come out of your mouth? Bad idea). Anyway, the homophobe pandering is set to begin.

I ran into Gatewood Galbraith and had one heck of a conversation. The one thing about Gatewood that most of his supporters don't know is that Mr. Freedom is actually anti-choice when it comes to abortion. I've cast a couple protest votes for Gatewood in my day and didn't realize this until recently. I wanted to figure out just how anti-choice he is, so I went through the same series of question that I usually do with folks who protest abortion clinics and have rallies with giant pictures of aborted fetuses. When asked whether abortion should be legal or illegal, he strongly said illegal, except in cases of rape. I asked if he thought it was murder, and he again gave a strong yes. I asked, if the law was totally up to him, would these women be charged with this crime as murder, and he again said yes, it is the murder of a human being. I asked him if that would be pretty harsh, having the government lock you away for ending your pregnancy, and he further elaborated that if these women didn't want a baby, they should have thought about that before they had sex, i.e., the old "sluts should pay the price" argument that we know and love so well here at B&P. I seriously wasn't expecting this. At all.

I asked him how this position jived with his whole "freedom" rhetoric, that the government should control what women do with their own body. He again went back to the "she should have thought about that before she had sex" line, then talked about the "rights" of fertilized eggs. When I repeatedly pressed to him that a government policy like this would likely mean women given life in prison or the death penalty, he kind of wavered a bit towards the end, possibly realizing he sounded a bit.... nutty. I hope to G-d he was just altered at the time.

I asked him if he supported emergency contraception (morning after pill), and he had the gall to say that he didn't, because this is no different than an abortion. This, my friends, is just plain ignorant and fanatical. He also noted (or perhaps this was Dea) that he felt this way because he is "Catholic". He apparently didn't get the irony when he emphasized to me, quite strongly, when discussing the criminal punishment for abortion, that he is a big supporter of the death penalty.

Don't you just love selective Catholicism?

Even though I grilled him pretty damn good on abortion, he was at least a good sport and didn't duck any questions, and gave me a copy of his book. But yea....

(UPDATE: Gatewood is now saying that I "made up" the entire conversation, accusing me of "slander". Hilarious. As fanatical as he sounded, I can't say that I blame him for lying about it)

I then spoke with his running mate, Dea Riley, and informed her about what Gatewood just told me about abortion. The look on her face was priceless when she said "oh did he now?" .....one of the highlights of my day. I truly truly truly felt sorry for Dea, but she gave a very smartly worded answer to me in a damned tough situation. (UPDATE: Dea is now jumping on the slander bandwagon. Fanning the flames, not smart!)

As for the Conway camp, I asked Jack, Allison and Mark Riddle about what Geveden said concerning his "tape". They said he's full of it and he should put up or shut up. I asked Jack, if "clean coal" existed, and he said that in terms of today's technology, there is nothing that totally eliminates carbon emissions, but that is why further research in this technology is so important. He thinks it can happen. Personally, I don't. Either way, it is obvious that millions are going into this research (because of Obama's Cap and Trade Bill), so I hope I'm very very wrong, for everybody's sake. Conway also found it curious that Mongiardo is so vehemently against a bill that would have given so many millions of dollars to clean coal technology research that he claims to support.

Meador was then confronted with the brilliance of Kim Geveden, and given a preview of the main focus of Mongiardo's speech. He came up to Meador and handed him a plastic spoon that was colored silver. Confused, he asked him what that was about. Kim said:

"Well, you see, common folks eat their barbecue with a fork. But other folks, they eat their caviar with a silver spoon!"

Brilliant.

And so it was when Lt. Dan made his speech, setting the Guiness World Record for most mentions of "silver spoon" within a 20 second time frame. He came very close to the "caviar" record, too.

This from a man who waxes his eyebrows and has personally spent millions of dollars on himself. A man who went to college in *gasp* Canada! They even speak French up there!

This, just like his "Duke" obsession, is nothing less than an insult to the intelligence of Kentucky voters. He might as well have stood on stage and called him "limp-wristed". Rather pathetic...

By the way, noted Louisville elitist, fancy homosexual, and lady treat aficionado Jake Payne later had this to say about the whole silver spoon/caviar fiasco:

"First of all, you serve caviar with a spoon made of mother of pearl. Silver taints elitist fish eggs. Who is advising these buffoons? Here in the ivory tower, we're also aware that real men don't eat BBQ of dead animal with an elitist fork-- you eat it between two pieces of bread, with your manly hands."

Mongiardo gave, as I recall, every dig in his speech towards Conway. The Republicans stayed clear of attacking each other (except for a Rand Paul reference to "Argentina"), and the only Democrat in attendance that they went after was Conway.

Can you guess who the front runner in this race is right now? I bet you can.

Conway totally gave everyone the vapors. Southern belles collapsing onto their fainting couches. It was like a Lenny Bruce routine. Like watching a woman do a burlesque show dance. Scandalous.

Well, not really. I would say the closest thing in the world that Fancy Farm speeches resemble are prison riots. Hundreds of red-faced people screaming insults at each other, trying to drown each other out, on the verge of madness. The very event itself is "offensive", in the technical sense of the word. But not as offensive as some things.

Trey Grayson gave a speech that was, for the most part, recycled quotes from Mitch McConnell interviews. Lots of references to Pelosi and Reid, even a France reference (you're about 6 years late on that one, Tres). He said that under Obama's scary government health care, doctors will tell you to "talk to 2 bureaucrats and call me in the morning". Somebody should fill Tres in that this is what's happening now. And the current bureacrats' #1 goal is profit. Ah, nevermind, he knows that.

Tres also referred to Obama's "plummeting approval rating". This was, hands down, that most blatantly false spin of the entire day. If Obama's 60% approval is "plummeting", I'd love to hear what he calls Mitch McConnell's 20% national approval rating.

Rand Paul gave, without a doubt, the biggest snoozer of the entire day. As Tom Eblen pointed out, as he was giving a fascinating lecture on reading bills, somebody from the Republican side shouted "you're boring!" One of my few points of agreement with Republicans the entire day.

Democrat Darlene Price talked about seizing tons of marijuana and cocaine as a customs agent. I looked over at Gatewood and drool was running all the way down his shirt.

Democrat Maurice Sweeney said that everybody wants to compare him to Barack Obama. Everybody was actually wondering who the hell he was. He brought a mayonnaise jar with him up to the stage, for reasons I didn't quite catch.

Republican Bill Johnson said that he spent his career fighting foreign enemies overseas, but now we have domestic enemies to fight. And Barack Obama is one of them. Many, many people shouting "treason" at him. He also said that he is proud to work for Big Oil. The same Rand Paul supporters who cheered Price when she said she'd fight against big oil cheered him on this line, too.

After the candidates, Badass Crit Luallen gave a damned good speech, then Todd Hollenbach took the stage to praise Jim Bunning. He chose not to praise Frank Simon, fortunately.

And that was that. A pretty tame Fancy Farm, with very little heckling and theatrical shenanigans.

I'll just leave you with 3 pics. The biggest badass at Fancy Farm not named Crit Luallen:



The Paulbot-mobile:


And this precious pic of Lt. Dan:

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