Lt. Dan in a closet

Hey, don't blame me folks, but there is now a video on the internets at BGR of the author of the 2004 Marriage Amendment doing an interview in a closet.

Don't send me lumps of Lt. Dan coal in the mail, folks, I'm just pointing it out.

No thank you, Lt. Dan

You want to move Kentucky into the 21st century? Well, this is one way that you WON'T do it: by electing Dan Mongiardo as your Senator in 2010.

Dan Mongiardo stands for everything that is wrong with DINOs in KY, from his gay-baiting marriage amendment to his love affair with mountaintop removal and burning as much coal as humanly possible from here to eternity.

It should be the duty of every good progressive in Kentucky to make sure that if he runs, he does NOT get the nomination.

Who should? I'd take Conway in a heartbeat. And I stand by my statement that I have sources that have heard it directly from Ben Chandler that he is running in 2010. I had plenty of problems with Ben in 2007 (that's an understatement, yes), but he's been a pleasant surprise this year. If it's comes down to just Chandler or Lt. Dan, I'll be 100% behind Ben, you can count on that.

Fear and Sweating at Fancy Farm

Ok, finally back from an Internet free weekend full of shenanigans and 90 degree heat.

So, let's get right in to Fancy Farm.

I showed up Friday night for the Democratic Party "Bean Soup Dinner" aka "KDP Flatulent Speeches Dinner". Before I even walked in, I noticed that two McConnell Youth trackers were being arrested for trespassing or something. One was outside and one was able to sneak inside. There are about 2 Lunsford tracker-blockers for every Mitch tracker from what I was able to observe this weekend.

I didn't realize it until later, but Lunsford campaign manager Brad Katz was outside milling about near me while I was waiting to go in. I didn't recognize him at the time because he wasn't unprofessionally berating staffers in front of everyone in public.

After exchanging hellos with The Alessi, I went in and watched the speakers. Besides the auctioneer/former judge whose name I can't remember, it was a pretty lame affair. Most of the speakers sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher, either because of the microphone or because they were already drunk.

Frank Simon loving Todd Hollenbach spoke, as well as Jody Richards, whose hair was NOT orange that night. Let's just say this... I HOPE Jody was drunk. Wow.

Jim Cauley was introduced to the crowd in a VERY awkward manner, as the MC mentioned the current lowly position that he's been demoted to. Ouch!

Carroll Hubbard: "When David Williams takes a sleeping pill, 21 Republican Senators take a nap"

Mike Lawrence, a candidate for State Rep in Western KY spoke, and I was actually quite impressed with him. He didn't talk about coal power, rather using hydro-power. Wow. He also gave a huge shout-out to the KEA, which was very nice. A pretty articulate guy, too.

There were a ton of people there, and I swear that Colmon Elridge was the only black dude in the room. (big thanks to KY Young Democrats, btw)

Crit Luallen gave a pretty good speech, saying how our Dem Pres primary has shown that your gender or color can't stop you from doing anything you want in America. Most of the speech was blasting Mitch, saying that we must all unite behind Bruce Lunsford in order to send Mitch home.

After Heather Ryan and Jen Moore, it was time for Dr. Mountaintop Removal, himself. The MC introduced Dan Mongiardo by mentioning his child bride, saying how purrrrdy she is. Dan opened up saying that Steve Beshear was the greatest governor that Kentucky had ever seen. Ahem. Then...... it was all about the coal.

"Look at all of the great natural assets we have!" (right, now lets destroy them all)

"We have great destinations for the outdoors!" (again, let's destroy them and build a Wal-Mart on it)

Here's my corn muffin top removal with coal sludge in honor of Dr. Peabody.



Then he went on and on about coal-to-liquid, and said that Barack Obama is fully behind helping Kentucky with this.

Ugh... say that again, Dan? Obama basically abandoned coal-to-liquid over a year ago in his primary campaign, setting up a conditional standard for coal-to-liquid that he knew (and everyone knows) will never be met. Yet, Danny felt it would be nice to deceive the crowd on this one. Nice.

I actually went up to Mongiardo outside and asked him about it.

"You said that Barack Obama is for coal-to-liquid?"

"Oh, he's totally for it"

"But didn't he switch his position on that last year?"

"No, he's never changed his position. Coal-to liquid is 40% cleaner than regular gasoline."

Someone saved him from me after that, but... wow. What dishonest bullshit. I like that he's behind Obama, of course, but don't publicly distort what Obama is for. (even though you can keep on deceiving people with that "40% cleaner" propaganda. It's expected from people like you.)

Bruce Lunsford was next, and he gave a rather low-key speech about his humbling beginnings yada yada yada. Made some joke about Mitch being small and heartless. Indeed.

Steve Beshear went last and completely knocked the ball out of the park. If only he could run a government like he stump speeches, this session wouldn't have sucked so much.

All in all, the evening had a factory farm kind of feeling to it.

From then, it was on to the wacky crazy Lunsford Party, where basically everyone crammed into. Said my hellos to Sam Wise, Heather Ryan, Crit Luallen, Joni Jenkins, Bruce Lunsford (Bruce always pretends to know who I am in the nicest way), and a host of staffers. And it was about 95 degrees. What Billy Idol says...

[rest of evening retracted]

On to the main event. Arrived at Fancy Farm about 11:30 the next morning, two and a half hours before the speeches would begin. This afforded me the opportunity of losing 15 pounds worth of sweat, which honestly, I needed.

The pre-speech festivities were highlighted by a bunch of race-baiting McConnell Youth. Who doesn't love a good dose of racism to get votes, eh?



A couple of McConnell Youth were also there to film the Lunsford booth (for some reason). I couldn't really get close enough to take good pics of them though, as I couldn't break through their trust fund force field.

I said hi to KDP Chair Jennifer Moore and mentioned my disappointment with having a KDP staffer trolling in BGReport comments calling me names anonymously. Not really professional. She just smiled and didn't say anything. Oh well, at least she was pleasant.

Speaking of pleasant, I had a nice chat with the lovely and talented Allison Haley, the former Communications Director of the KDP. She introduced me to the current CD, Thom Karmik. Karmik, of course, is who Jake Payne appears to have caught red-handed as the troll calling us names at BGReport. I gave Thom a big handshake and smile. He went straight into some type of lecture about how I'm not professional, and I should have called him to get his side of the story. The last time I called him, it took a week and 5 more calls for him to reply, and "his side of the story" on Todd Hollenbach is so laughably dishonest.... forgive me if I chuckle at that statement.

Anyway, Thom said that "Dillweed Detector" was not him. He said he did not know who at the KDP did this. Then we got into the Hollenbach mess. Karmik said that Hollenbach did renounce Frank Simon publicly. He said the Todd released his renouncement to the media.

"Which media?"

"I don't know"

"The Herald-Leader?"

"I'm not sure"

"Well, can I have a copy of this letter?"

"Well, I'm not running his campaign right now"

"But I'm the person that was pressing him to do this and still criticizing him over it. If he publicly renounces it, wouldn't it make sense to give me a copy of the letter? So I stop doing that? And you're the CommDir of the KDP. This explanation doesn't make any sense"

"Well, he publicly renounced it"

(jaw-dropped Media Czech stares in shocked silence)

So let me sum up Thom Karmik's argument: Hollenbach sent a letter to the media about Frank Simon, but we (1) don't know what the letter said, (2) we don't know who the letter was sent to, and (3) I can't have a copy of the letter. Despite this, it is somehow factual that Todd Hollenbach publicly renounced Frank Simon's endorsement.

Makes perfect sense, huh?

This is what we call bad spin.

OK, on to the speechifying. I won't go into great detail here, because the videos are already up and the MSM and blogs have reported most of this already.

Best speaker was undoubtedly Steve Beshear, with the "Funeral home" quip and at one point saying that the problem with the country over the last 8 years have been people like this, as he pointed to the Republicans heckling him. Said he offered Bunning the National Guard for security. Nice and shrill. Me like.

Mitch, Bunning and Whitfield got major heckling, and I know I'm biased, but they looked really shaken by it (or age, I dunno). Mitch was slow and his voice kept cracking. Ed Whitfield held up an article and his hand was shaking like LA. Jim Bunning received a chant of "Little Green Men" while mumbled about "environmental wackos" that Lunsford will "take orders from". He also got the Bluegrass band to play him off of the stage for going over his allotted time, the look on his confused face was priceless.

McConnell kept saying "Yes We Can", and it sounded EXACTLY like McCain's awful attempt to parody Obama on the night Barack clinched the nomination. It was a train wreck of a speech.



Lunsford gave a rather low key boring speech, with only 2 zingers (Bunning played with Babe Ruth, and Mitch chose to go 2nd, just like he'll finish on Nov. 4th). Then Heather Ryan came up to the mic and absolutely rocked. Here's her whole speech below.



So that's that. Race-baiting, sweating, heckling, BBQing, lying, networking and more sweating. Yep, there's your Fancy Farm.

Dan Mongiardo: another worthless KY Democrat

(via Swishy Jake)

Dan Mongiardo, king of the gay-baiting repugnant Marriage Amendment of 2004, has stepped into the gutter once more.

He's now come out enthusiastically, 100% for... mountaintop removal.

The Appalachian News-Express reported on Thursday that Mongiardo told a group at a local hotel that mountaintop removal creates flat land that could be used for building businesses, hospitals and airports.

“A lot of people look at mountaintop removal as a negative, but I see it as a positive,” Mongiardo said.

The lieutenant governor went on to say that he wants to promote mountaintop removal.

What Mark Twain said...

I think it's fair to say that Dan Mongiardo has now ventured into the realm of Jim Gooch. Hope I get to run into him again a Fancy Farm this weekend just like I did on victory night. We all remember how that went, hehehehe....

Lt. Dan endorses Obama

Lt. Dan Mongiardo endorses Obama. Join the crowd...

LEXINGTON, KY - Today, Kentucky Lt. Governor Daniel Mongiardo announced his endorsement of Senator Barack Obama for President, less than two weeks before the state's May 20th primary.

"I am happy to announce my endorsement of Senator Barack Obama for President," said Lt. Gov. Mongiardo. "I believe Senator Obama can unite the Democratic Party and build a coalition of Independents and Republicans to win in November. A proven leader at working across the partisan aisle, he will bring relief to the hardworking families of Kentucky and a responsible end to the war in Iraq. As a surgeon I am particularly impressed with Senator Obama's plan to deliver health care to all Americans, with an imperative focus on cutting medical costs for all families. It's time for real change in Washington, and Sen. Obama is the candidate to deliver that change."