Louisville Courier Journal
May 30
By: Joseph Gerth
While the Kentucky governor’s race has the highest profile in this year’s election, the contest for attorney general is a not-too-distant second.
The race pits Democratic incumbent Jack Conway against Hopkins County Attorney Todd P’Pool. And it’s the obsession of the state Republican Party.
“There is blood in the water and everyone smells it,” said Ted Jackson, a Louisville businessman who has run Republican congressional and gubernatorial campaigns in Kentucky.
What gives the GOP hope is the fact that Conway lost last year’s U.S. Senate race to Republican Rand Paul in a way that many people thought harmed his political future — including a television attack ad that backfired badly.
“They generally perceive that Jack is weak and coming off a loss,” Jackson said.
But state Democratic Party Chairman Daniel Logsdon thinks the Republicans are kidding themselves if they believe they can knock off Conway.
“I think they are 100 percent wrong,” he said. “… They believe Jack is weaker than he is.”
He added: “Last year was a difficult year for Jack, and it was not his fault. He had millions of dollars of anonymous corporate money spent against him, and it was just a bad year for Democrats.”
Logsdon said he believes Republicans know that Senate President David Williams can’t beat Democratic incumbent Steve Beshear in the governor’s race and are doubling down on the next best office.
Conway, vacationing in South Carolina, said the Republicans are simply looking for a race to key on if they take a whipping in the governor’s race.
If Williams doesn’t get his campaign together, Conway said, “they’re going to take a shot at me.”
And if Republicans think they can beat him because he lost the Senate race last year, Conway said they are mistaken.
“I can tell you, there’s a lot of difference between an attorney general’s race and a Senate race,” he said. “In this race, people want to talk about who is good for law enforcement and who would make the best attorney general. … I’ve done a lot to recommend me for another term.”
P’Pool’s campaign manager, David Ray, said that the race is important because “Jack Conway has proven time and again that he lacks the judgement to lead.”
“Whether it is his unwavering support of Obamacare or his refusal to stand up to a hostile EPA, Conway has failed to represent the citizens of Kentucky,” Ray said.
Attorney general is generally considered to be the second most important constitutional office in Kentucky — and that was never more apparent than during the administration of the last Republican governor, Beshear’s predecessor Ernie Fletcher.
Then-Attorney General Greg Stumbo aggressively pursued an investigation into Fletcher’s hiring practices — leading to indictments of administration officials, including Fletcher himself.
The charges against Fletcher were ultimately dropped as part of an agreement with Stumbo, but the damage was done and Fletcher was doomed in his re-election bid against Beshear.
“The experience of Greg Stumbo investigating Gov. Fletcher probably has a lot of people focused on the ability of an attorney general to, on one hand, check the power of a governor and, on the other hand, disrupt the power of the governor,” said Jonathan Miller, a former state treasurer who served in the Beshear administration until recently. “I would assume that’s why there is a lot of focus.”
The Republicans also are high on P’Pool’s future. He’s 38, gives a good stump speech and has shown that he can raise money.
Miller said he could potentially be a gubernatorial candidate in 2015 if Williams doesn’t win this year.
Republicans, however, say that they are focused on electing P’Pool this year and that their efforts have nothing to do with the 2015 governor’s race.
State Republican Chairman Steve Robertson is behind a barrage of daily e-mail attacks on Conway — criticizing the attorney general for his role in a matter involving his brother, Matt, a former prosecutor in Jefferson County.
Matt Conway, who resigned from the commonwealth’s attorney’s office for undisclosed reasons earlier this year, had lied to investigators about being tipped off by police that he was the subject of a drug probe, though he was never charged.
Jack Conway was informed of the investigation after a political supporter overheard a police officer discussing it in a Louisville restaurant. Jack Conway then called his brother, and they met with defense attorney Bart Adams, who subsequently met with Metro Police Chief Robert White.
Robertson claims there are unanswered questions to which Jack Conway needs to respond. He also says the matter, along with a controversial ad the attorney general ran against Paul last year involving an alleged college prank from 30 years ago, shows a pattern of bad judgment on Conway’s part.
Robertson said the attacks against Conway will continue because “he is bad for Kentucky” — not because it’s part of an effort to elevate a future candidate or to put a Republican in a key investigative office.
