Todd P'Pool for Attorney General. Fighting to Preserve the Culture of Kentucky

P’Pool Would Fight Health-Care Reform

By Victoria Grabner
The Gleaner

The Republican candidate for Kentucky attorney general said Thursday that if he is elected in November, he will make sure the state joins the legal fight against a federal health-care law passed in 2010.

“I think the most important issue facing Kentucky today is the way ‘Obamacare’ will change our culture,” Todd P’Pool said in a visit to The Gleaner’s office.

The Madisonville native said that 26 other states have joined together to fight the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act while his Democratic opponent, Jack Conway, has stood on the sidelines.

P’Pool said the health-care law will change the way that Methodist Hospital and its physicians do business. He added that it will kill jobs in the private sector and will diminish the quality of healthcare in the state.

“And it’s unconstitutional, so it’s probably the worst piece of legislation that I’ve seen in my lifetime,” P’Pool said.

Responding to some supporters of the law who say the law will give more residents in the state access to health care, P’Pool said the law will actually expand the state’s Medicaid rolls by another 300,000 to 400,000 people.

“If we struggled closing the gap of Medicaid this year, it’s going to devastate our budget next year,” he said.

P’Pool pointed out that many unions are trying to get an exemption to the new health-care law.

He said that when the health-care law is implemented in the state, it will have a trickle-down effect on local governments.

“And you will see fewer discretionary dollars available for roads, for infrastructure projects that are so important to counties,” he said.

He said there is strength in numbers in joining 26 other states in the litigation against the health-care law, and that Kentuckians want their voice heard on this issue.

“It’s not in our history to shy away from a challenge in Kentucky,” he said.

Meanwhile, he said Kentucky can be an energy leader for the United States if it will keep its commitment to making Kentucky coal companies strong.

“Cheap electricity is our competitive advantage to recruit manufacturers,” he said.

“I think we have to be responsible with both the mining and burning of coal, but a lot of the science on carbon emissions has proven to be faulty.”

He also said he would fight the Environmental Protection Agency on behalf of farmers in the state.

P’Pool also said that he thinks it’s important for Henderson and western Kentucky residents to know that they will have a strong western Kentucky advocate in Frankfort.

“The Democratic Party does not have any candidate with a ZIP code west of I-65,” he said.

P’Pool added to the national debate about trying terrorism suspects by saying he supports using Guantanamo Bay detention camp to house enemy combatants.

“When you give aid and comfort to our enemy, you should be tried in a military tribunal, not in a civilian court room,” he said.

He added that there are also issues of safety and cost tied to trying terrorism suspects in Kentucky.

Speaking of public safety, P’Pool said that he would be the first prosecutor in the state attorney general’s office in the past two decades.

He was first elected to the office of Hopkins County Attorney in 2006 and then again in 2010.

He said he was the first Republican elected to a countywide office since the Civil War era in what he said was a district of nearly 70 percent registered Democrats.

P’Pool said public prosecutors and law enforcement have had three consecutive budget cuts. That has impacted staffing levels even while case loads continue to grow.

He said police officers could always use additional training funds.

“We’re only about 4 percent of the state budget, so I’m looking forward to being the chief lobbyist for law enforcement and prosecutors when I’m serving as attorney general,” he said.

P’Pool also said that Kentucky has a serious drug problem.

He said he was one of the organizing founders of Western Kentucky Teen Challenge, a faith-based residential drug rehabilitation center in Dixon.

“The best anti-drug is a job and an education,” he said. “The only way to combat (drug abuse) is for our people to be physically, mentally and spiritually healthy.”

P’Pool said Kentucky needs a full-time attorney general.

“We don’t need someone to spend half their term running for the U.S. Senate,” he said.

P’Pool said he has no political ambitions beyond the attorney general’s office.

“I’m simply focused on this election this year, and there’s no master plan beyond November 2011,” he said.

For those who take note of his interesting name, P’Pool explained that it was shortened from Pettypool generations ago.

He received a bachelor’s degree in finance and a law degree from the University of Kentucky.

He and his wife, Shannon, have three daughters. They reside in Madisonsville.

This article can be found at: http://www.courierpress.com/news/2011/jul/07/ppool-would-fight/

P’Pool campaigns in BG
GOP candidate for state attorney general calls incumbent’s judgment into question

By Andrew Robinson
Bowling Green Daily News

Todd P’Pool, Republican candidate for Kentucky attorney general, didn’t mince words Thursday about his opponent, Attorney General Jack Conway, during a stop at the Daily News before appearing an event with U.S. Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Bowling Green, later in the day.

P’Pool said he expects poor judgment from Conway following Conway’s failed U.S. Senate campaign against U.S. Sen. Rand Paul this past fall.

“You know he was the architect of the Aqua Buddha campaign,” P’Pool said, referring to a tactic Conway’s campaign used against Paul. “When you see a public official at this level demonstrate such poor judgment – that’s what I expect from Jack Conway is poor judgment because that’s all we’ve seen time and time again.”

The Aqua Buddha ad started airing after GQ magazine published a story in August that said when Paul was a student at Baylor University, he made a classmate worship an Aqua Buddha as her god.

Conway said shortly after May’s primary election that the Aqua Buddha ad didn’t feel right, and he assured voters that he will never again run an ad that he isn’t comfortable with.

“And I don’t know what to say other than it didn’t feel right in my gut and I will never make that same mistake twice,” Conway told Louisville’s WHAS-TV.

P’Pool, the Hopkins County attorney, said he also plans to take a strong stance on “Obamacare.”

“Obamacare is going to change Kentucky’s health care in a dramatic way,” P’Pool said. “It will kill jobs, it will raise taxes, it will diminish the quality of care and it will devastate rural hospitals.

“In my first month as attorney general, Kentucky will report for duty in the fight against Obamacare.”

P’Pool, wearing a “Friends of Coal” lapel pin, also spoke of defending President Barack Obama’s plans to bankrupt coal-fired power plants.

P’Pool, like so many other candidates, spoke to the importance of Warren County and Bowling Green in November’s election.

“Obviously, with Bowling Green being the third largest city in Kentucky, it will be a real key area in our campaign and this election, so being here as much as possible will be important to our victory strategy,” he said.

In addition to his event with Guthrie last night, P’Pool said he will also be a part of an event tonight in Louisville with Paul.

P’Pool is also one of the few statewide candidates who hails from west of Interstate 65.

“I don’t want to say it’s an advantage in the sense that it would diminish any other region of the state,” P’Pool said. “I make that notion that western Kentucky will have strong representation in Frankfort when I win this office. It’s important in my mind that we have regional diversity in Frankfort and that the people of western Kentucky have a strong advocate in Frankfort.”

Read the article here: http://bgdailynews.com/articles/2011/07/01/news/news4.txt