Democratic Slates

With less than four weeks until the filing dead line there are three slates that have filed to run in the Democratic Primary, MILLER / MAZE, BESHEAR / MONGIARDO, (if any one knows of Beshear/Mongiardo website, send me an email) and HENSLEY / ROBBINS.

There may be others coming, Steve Henry, Jody Richards, Bruce Lunsford, Gatewood Galbraith or Charlie Owen, but at this point in time the Miller/Maze ticket is the one to beat.

Hensley and Robbins will once again provide the comic relief during the primary and will probably take one or two percent of the vote.

Beshear and Mongiardo have a couple of hills to climb, first Beshear has been out of the game for a long time his name recognition will have to be raised with today’s voters. Mongiardo is perhaps providing more of a drag on the ticket than a help at this point.

Mongiardo is facing ethics charges for his involvement with a pretty inept PAC also his three year May-December romance with a UK student doesn’t play well with the family values crowd.

On the up side the Beshear/Mongiardo team has hired some heavy hitting campaign help when they hired Pikeville native Jim Cauley as the campaign manager.

Miller / Maze are off to a good start, there will be a lot of money and political smarts behind this team. One thing Miller will have to be careful with is his appeal to the young voters.

Appealing to and involving young people in a campaign is a good thing but there is the reality that the young don’t vote. Couple this with Miller’s boyish 39 year old looks it is easy to make the charge that Miller lacks experience and will usher in another kiddie corps like the one Ernie Fletcher brought with him.

Now in the interest of full discloser, let me say that I support the Miller / Maze ticket. I think Jonathan Miller and Irv Maze are the best slate for Kentucky.