Gettin' Mucky in Kentucky

You would have laid odds that the most entertaining Senate race this cycle would have been the Barack Obama/Alan Keyes contest in Illinois. But with Obama so far ahead (I think Keyes himself is "leaning Obama" at this point) that he's mostly campaigned in other states, the sizzle there has gone out.

Actually, the most entertaining race has been the one in Kentucky, where wingnut and former Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jim Bunning is up for re-election against State Senator Daniel Mongiardo. This wouldn't even have been a race at all, except for a series of startling gaffes by Bunning, which called into question his sanity. First he said Mongiardo, who is darkly complected, "looks like one of Saddam Hussein's kids." He falsely claimed that he was endorsed by a union that endorsed his opponent. He started using police escorts wherever he went, and when asked why, answered that “there may be strangers among us.” Then he refused to appear in a Louisville TV studio for a debate, instead doing it via satellite from an RNC bunker. During the debate he obviously was reading from a Teleprompter. After the debate Bunning accused his opponent's staff of beating up his wife in Kentucky last summer, leaving her "black and blue". People began to wonder whether Bunning had some kind of dementia. Suddenly, we had a race in a Republican stronghold. Last week, Bunning told reporters: "Let me explain something: I don't watch the national news, and I don't read the paper."

Fearing an upset, Bunning's cadre of supporters have decided to roll out the big guns: calling their opponent gay.

OWENSBORO - A top state Republican called Demo-cratic U.S. Senate candidate Dan Mongiardo "limp-wristed," and another GOP state legislator said she questions whether "the word 'man' applies to him" in speeches during Sen. Jim Bunning's campaign bus tour yesterday.

Williams began using the term "limp-wristed" at the start of the tour on Monday, when he also described Mongiardo as a "switch hitter who doesn't know whether he's on left or right." When asked what he meant then, he said,"there's no sexual connotation."

Both state Senate President David Williams of Burkesville and state Sen. Elizabeth Tori of Radcliff denied they intended to raise questions about Mongiardo's sexual orientation -- though Tori later said that if any listeners thought she was referring to his sexuality, "so be it."

That's the way to get the base fired up, I guess. This is the part that kills me:

"Besides, I don't understand the Democrats on this one," Williams added. "I'm not saying anything about anyone's sexual orientation. But if I were -- are they saying that's pejorative, that it's bad to be homosexual? I don't think they would say that, but how can they have it both ways?"

Recently, Williams had criticized candidates in an Eastern Kentucky state Senate race for trying to play "the homosexual card" by raising questions about each other's sexual orientation.

Mr. Williams, you've actually rated a perfect 10 on the naked transparency chart for that remark.

By the way, they still let Bunning speak at these events, although that may have to stop:

Bunning may have given Democrats more fodder yesterday. At St. Catharine College in Springfield, he referred to "November the 11th" while speaking about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

I never thought I'd be paying so much attention to Kentucky politics, but this is fun. Plus, you know, it could determine the majority of the Senate.