Ky., Ore. voters choose US Senate candidates
As much as I hate to say it Bruce Lunsford will be "Mitch Slaped" by Mitch McConnell
Ky., Ore. voters choose US Senate candidates
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<span class="strong">Jeff Merkley</span><br/> <span class="dgray f-10">Democratic U.S Senate candidate Jeff Merkley,left, looks over primary election returns with campaign manager Jon Isaacs in Portland, Ore., Tuesday May 20, 2008. (AP Photo/Steve Slocum) </span>
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<td class="alt"><a href="http://www.politicalbase.com/people/jeff-merkley/17264/">Biography</a></td>
<td class="alt"><a href="http://www.politicalbase.com/people/jeff-merkley/17264/issues/">Issues</a></td>
<td class="alt"><a href="http://www.politicalbase.com/people/jeff-merkley/17264/money/">Fund Raising</a></td>
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<td class="alt"><a href="http://www.politicalbase.com/people/jeff-merkley/17264/rivals/">Rivals</a></td>
<td class="alt"><a href="http://www.politicalbase.com/people/jeff-merkley/17264/supporters/">Supporters</a></td>
<td class="alt"><a href="http://www.politicalbase.com/people/jeff-merkley/17264/affiliations/">Affiliations</a></td>
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<p>The speaker of the Oregon House on Tuesday narrowly won a chance to challenge the sole GOP senator on the West Coast, defeating a fiery political activist who made light of the fact that he has a metal hook for a left hand.</p>
Across the country in Kentucky, a millionaire businessman who grew up on a tobacco farm captured that state's Democratic Senate nomination, winning a crack at Republican leader Mitch McConnell, the powerful four-term incumbent with a big campaign bankroll.
In the Oregon primary, House Speaker Jeff Merkley ran as the establishment candidate after he was recruited by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to try to unseat Republican Sen. Gordon Smith in the fall.
With 65 percent of the total expected vote counted, Merkley had nearly 46 percent, compared with 41 percent for Steve Novick, who gained traction with lighthearted campaign videos that poked fun at the prosthesis he uses because of birth defects.
Smith, who easily beat a token challenger, is the only Republican holding statewide office in Oregon, which has voted more Democratic in recent elections. He has pledged to raise $10 million or more for his re-election to a third term.
Elsewhere in Oregon, a testy congressional contest took shape in the state's 5th District, where Democratic Rep. Darlene Hooley's surprise retirement set the stage for one of the most competitive House races in the country.
Mike Erickson, a wealthy businessman, won the Republican nomination despite allegations by an opponent that Erickson got a girlfriend pregnant, then paid for her abortion.
Erickson denied the accusations, calling them a desperate campaign attack by rival Kevin Mannix, a former lawmaker and state GOP chairman.
In November, Erickson will go up against Democratic state Sen. Kurt Schrader, chairman of the Legislature's budget-writing committee, who beat a longtime adviser to former Gov. John Kitzhaber.
In the contest to challenge McConnell, Bruce Lunsford handily defeated seven other Democrats, including Greg Fischer, a Louisville entrepreneur who made a fortune partly by co-inventing an ice and beverage dispenser now commonplace in restaurants.
Lunsford and Fischer both put some of their personal fortunes into their campaigns.
McConnell, the Senate's top Republican, easily defeated his sole opponent in the GOP primary, little-known truck driver Daniel Essek.
The fall matchup between McConnell and Lunsford could turn into a bruising, free-spending fight. McConnell raised more than $12 million in campaign cash through March. Lunsford spent about $14 million of his own money in his gubernatorial campaigns in 2003 and 2007. He failed to advance beyond the primary both times.
Lunsford touted his humble roots growing up on a Kentucky tobacco farm and working on a road crew to help put him through college. But he also has a jet-set lifestyle as a partner in a movie production company.
In Arkansas, an appeals court judge was voted off the bench after waging a battle over the last six years with a state ethics panel over whether he had a right to speak publicly on non-judicial issues such as the war in the Iraq.
Tuesday's re-election bid was the first for Judge Wendell Griffen since he was questioned by the panel about comments criticizing the Bush administration. The Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission eventually dropped the matter.
Griffen was appointed to the appellate court in 1996 and won re-election without opposition in 2000.
In Kentucky, former Rep. Carroll Hubbard, who served more than two years in federal prison following the House banking scandal, won a place on the November ballot for a state Senate seat.
Hubbard, who started his political career representing the district nearly 40 years ago, was defeated in the 1992 Democratic primary because of fallout from the scandal.
Associated Press writer Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Ky., contributed to this report.
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KENTUCKY VOTERS PLEASE READ...
In the Democratic Primary to face Mitch McConnell in the fall, one candidate truly understands the plight of working Kentuckians, and Americans. Greg Fischer has no illusions, he knows that the table has been tilted against honest, hardworking Americans. He has seen prices of everything skyrocket like the rest of us, while wages remain stagnant. Best of all though, Fischer actually wants to fight and remedy these problems, instead of being part of them.
Unfortunatly I can not say the same about Bruce Lunsford. Bruce Lunsford has gave thousands of dollars to the republican party including Mitche McConnell and has endorsed canidates like Ernie Fletcher...
Please Vote for Greg Fischer tomorrow!!!
Greg Fischer is endorsed by the Winchester Sun...
U.S. Senate canidate Greg Fischer was endorsed by the Winchester Sun on May 15th... http://www.gregfischer.com/index.php/news_item/194
Kentucky demographics favor Clinton
I, like most elections will be voting against the trend in "red state" Kentucky... I will be voting for Obama
Kentucky demographics favor Clinton
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<span class="strong">Barack Obama</span><br/> <span class="dgray f-10">In this May 12, 2008 file photo, Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks to a group of supporters at the Kentucky International Convention Center in Louisville, Ky. Add a shot of whiskey and a pinch of tobacco and, politically, Kentucky is a lot like neighboring West Virginia _ Clinton country. Both states are overwhelmingly white, largely rural and have a greater share of residents below the poverty line and without college degrees than the nation as whole. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, File)</span>
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<td class="alt"><a href="http://www.politicalbase.com/people/barack-obama/3221/">Biography</a></td>
<td class="alt"><a href="http://www.politicalbase.com/people/barack-obama/3221/issues/">Issues</a></td>
<td class="alt"><a href="http://www.politicalbase.com/people/barack-obama/3221/money/">Fund Raising</a></td>
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<td class="alt"><a href="http://www.politicalbase.com/people/barack-obama/3221/rivals/">Rivals</a></td>
<td class="alt"><a href="http://www.politicalbase.com/people/barack-obama/3221/supporters/">Supporters</a></td>
<td class="alt"><a href="http://www.politicalbase.com/people/barack-obama/3221/affiliations/">Affiliations</a></td>
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<td class="alt"><a href="http://www.politicalbase.com/people/barack-obama/3221/photos/">Photos</a></td>
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<p>Add a shot of whiskey and a pinch of tobacco and, politically, Kentucky is a lot like neighboring West Virginia Clinton country.</p>
Both states are overwhelmingly white, largely rural and have a greater share of residents below the poverty line and without college degrees than the nation as whole.
And, as she did in West Virginia, Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to rack up a sizable victory in Kentucky's May 20 Democratic primary against front-runner Barack Obama, who is hoping to counter with a win on more favorable turf in Oregon the same day.
Clinton's track record gives her a strong advantage in Kentucky. Whites have favored Clinton over Obama by 55 percent to 40 percent, rural voters 51-43, and voters without college degrees 52-44 in exit polls from 26 competitive primaries.
Obama is strong among urban dwellers and rural blacks, giving him a fighting chance among voters in Louisville, the state's largest city, but little hope elsewhere, voting trends in other states indicate.
"Obama doesn't have much of a natural constituency in Kentucky," said Michael Baranowski, a political scientist at Northern Kentucky University. "Really, everything works in Clinton's favor."
One difference between the Rust Belt states that Clinton has won recently Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana and Kentucky is that the Bluegrass State has mostly benefited from trade with China.
Kentucky farmers grow tobacco for Chinese smokers. Distillery workers produce the world-famous bourbon whiskey, including Maker's Mark and Wild Turkey, that Chinese drinkers relish. In all, the state does more than $300 billion worth of business with China each year, according to the Kentucky World Trade Center in Lexington.
Clinton and Obama have appealed to blue-collar workers with promises to reopen trade agreements to include stronger labor and environmental protections. But Clinton has taken a harder line on China, suggesting that Bush should not attend opening ceremonies for this year's Olympic Games because of human rights abuses.
A record 2.8 million Kentuckians are registered to vote in the primary election. Of those, 1.6 million are Democrats. And, despite the close presidential primary, the number of new registered voters hasn't skyrocketed. In the past six months, 16,000 people have registered, 13,000 of them as Democrats.
Records from the Kentucky Board of Elections show that 53 percent of the state's registered voters are women, a demographic that has played in Clinton's favor in other states. Kentucky doesn't track party registrants by race, but blacks make up only 7.4 percent of the state's population compared with 12.4 percent nationally a far smaller minority voting bloc than in other Southern states carried by Obama.
And Kentucky voters are slightly older than voters nationally, another advantage for Clinton.
Clinton has won the endorsement of three of Kentucky's Democratic superdelegates. Obama has been endorsed by two, both Democratic congressmen representing the state's two largest cities. Three other superdelegates remain undecided.
Both candidates have opened campaign offices across the state. Clinton has campaigned in Kentucky, as have her husband and daughter. Until this week when he held a huge rally in Louisville, Obama hadn't visited the state this year, but he's running ads in all Kentucky TV markets.
Political scientist Kendra Stewart at Eastern Kentucky University said Kentucky voters are interested largely in the same issues as their counterparts across the country the economy, fuel prices, health care and Iraq. Kentuckians struggle with joblessness, especially in the impoverished mountain communities in the eastern half of the state. That population is also hit hardest by the price of gasoline, and more likely be without health care benefits.
Steve Earl, a union representative for the United Mine Workers of America, is convinced that the economy is the overriding issue, and that voters will make their decision based on who they think is best able to bring change.
"People are struggling across the state," he said.
Economic policy and energy policy are intertwined in Kentucky, where the coal mining industry employees 21,000, according to the National Mining Association.
Both Obama and Clinton have rallied environmentally-minded voters in other states with their promises to develop windmills, solar power and other renewable energy sources and order mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases from power plants to counter global warming.
It's a stance that would seem to target coal, which produces half the country's electricity but also nearly 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, each year.
Instead, "clean coal" which environmentalists say is a contradiction has become the mantra of both candidates.
On fuel prices, Clinton has advocated a summer gas tax holiday an idea Obama opposes and one that has been widely panned by a range of influential economists.
With two large military installations Fort Campbell and Fort Knox Kentucky also has a big stake in the war in Iraq, but the issue may not be huge in the state's primary, Stewart said. Clinton and Obama have taken similar stands, each calling for withdrawing troops from Iraq.
Stewart said Clinton's support among churchgoers in other states bodes well for her in Kentucky. Clinton has done especially well among Catholic voters, which, Stewart said, could help her offset Obama's support among blacks in Louisville, one of the state's strongest Catholic communities.
One of the things that make Kentucky politics exciting, Stewart said, is its unpredictability.
"Kentucky's so unique since we don't have a solid identity," she said. "We aren't for sure a southern state, and we're not a midwestern state. So, at times, it can be difficult to make these generalizations."
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Lunsford Endorsed by Courier-Journal...
Bruce Lunsford, Kentucky U.S. senate canidate, recieved an endorsment from the Courier-Journal, a Louisville newspaper. http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008805110390
Greg Fischer Endorsed by the Lexington Herald Leader.
Greg Fischer was endorsed by the Lexington Herald Leader today. According to the Herald Leader the deciding factor was Fischer had less baggage and a fresher voice.
Rev Wright works for McCain or Clinton?
I don't believe he is working with the GOP or Hillary Clinton... I personally believe Rev. Wright resented the fact that Barack Obama tryed to seperate himself from Rev. Wright and his ideas...
Cindy McCain says she'll never release her tax returns
Do you think John McCain has something to hide? I do and I hope John and Cindy McCain recieves more pressure to publicly release the returns...
Cindy McCain says she'll never release her tax returns
<p><a href="http://www.politicalbase.com/people/cindy-mccain/30880/">Cindy McCain</a> says she will never make her tax returns public even if her husband wins the White House and she becomes the first lady.</p>
"You know, my husband and I have been married 28 years and we have filed separate tax returns for 28 years. This is a privacy issue. My husband is the candidate," Cindy McCain, wife of Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting John McCain, said in an interview aired on NBC's "Today" on Thursday.
Asked if she would release her tax returns if she was first lady, Cindy McCain said: "No."
The Arizona senator released his tax return last month, reporting he had a total income of $405,409 in 2007 and paid $84,460 in federal income taxes. He files his return separately from his wife, an heiress to a Phoenix-based beer distributing company whose fortune is in the $100 million range.
Sen. McCain is routinely is ranked among the richest lawmakers in Congress, but he and his wife have kept their finances separate throughout their marriage. A prenuptial agreement left much of the family's assets in Cindy McCain's name.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Cindy McCain's refusal to release her tax returns gives the appearance of a double standard on the part of her husband.
"What is John McCain trying to hide?" Dean said in a statement. "Throughout this campaign, he has acted like his own calls for openness and accountability apply to everyone but himself. Now he thinks he can bring that same double standard to the White House."
Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton filed joint tax returns with their spouses and publicly released those returns.
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House passes bill to make coin-making cheaper
Why didn't we do this sooner if we knew it would save us $100 million dollars a year?
House passes bill to make coin-making cheaper
<p>The House voted for cheaper change Thursday, the kind that would make pennies and nickels worth more than they cost to make and save the country $100 million a year.</p>
The unanimous vote advances the legislation to the Senate, but it's prospects are muddled by objections from the Bush administration and some lawmakers.
The bill would require the U.S. Mint to switch from a zinc and copper penny, which costs 1.26 cents each to make, to a copper-plated steel penny, which would cost .7 cents to make, according to statistics from the Mint and Rep. Zack Space, D-Ohio, one of the measure's sponsors.
It also would require nickels, now made of copper and nickel and costing 7.7 cents to make, to be made primarily of steel, which would drop the cost to make the five-cent coin below its face value.
Advocates say that such actions would push back against surging metal prices and save taxpayers about $1 billion over a decade.
But even the Mint opposes the House-passed measure.
The legislation directs the Treasury secretary to "prescribe" suggest a new, more economical composition of the nickel and the penny. Unsaid is the Constitution's requirement that Congress have the final say.
The administration, like others before, chafes at the thought that Congress still clings to that authority, which it was given in the Constitution.
Mint Director Edmund Moy said this week that the bill as "too prescriptive," in part because it does not explicitly delegate to the Treasury secretary the power to decide the new coin composition.
The bill also gives the public and the metal industry too little time to weigh in on the new coin composition, he said.
Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., is expected to introduce another version of the legislation in the Senate.
In 2007, the Mint produced 7.4 billion pennies and 1.2 billion nickels, according to the House Financial Services Committee.
Other coins still cost less than their face value, according to the Mint. The dime costs a little over 4 cents to make, while the quarter costs almost 10 cents. The dollar coin, meanwhile, costs about 16 cents to make, according to the Mint.
The House bill is H.R. 5512.
U.S. Mint:
House Committee on Financial Services:
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Endorse Barack Obama So We Can Move FORWARD
I don't want a third term of George W. Bush and I think Barack Obama will deliever the American people real change... Obama in 08!!!!!
Ben Chandler has Endorsed Obama...
According to the Lexington Herald Leader Congressman Ben Chandler has endorsed Barak Obama for President.
http://polwatchers.typepad.com/pol_watchers/2008/04/us-rep-ben-chan.html
Obama Needs to Speak Out On Impeaching Bush/Cheney NOW
Are you serious? I think Obama needs to talk more about the future and change rather than dwell on the past and look in the rear view mirror
McCain Says He Could Lose Over War Issue
This is coming from a man who believes we are in good economic times...
KY Superdelegate Jennifer Moore Waiting fo May 20 Primary
I predict she votes Clinton but its just a hunch...
