The Bluegrass and Beyond

There was unease among some journalists, mayoral candidates and their staffers about the format for the first public forum of the Lexington mayor’s race. That’s because the candidates were to be questioned by three community bloggers as well as four journalists.

The concern was this: would the bloggers act professionally?

As it turned out, the bloggers were fine, and they asked some excellent questions.

It was one of the mayoral candidates, Clarence “Skip” Horine, who went off the deep end.

Horine is a businessman who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 1993. He was last to join this race, which also includes Mayor Jim Newberry; the mayor he defeated four years ago, Teresa Isaac; and Vice Mayor Jim Gray.

Many of Horine’s responses to questions were fine, although they included a lot of generic conservative “free enterprise will solve everything” language. Then he started making vague and confusing allegations about police corruption and bid-rigging on city projects, prompting Newberry at one point to say that if Horine has evidence of wrongdoing he should give it to prosecutors.

Then, when it was time for the candidates’ closing statements, Horine began with what he (accurately) described as a convoluted story about alleged police wrongdoing. Then he accused a police officer by name of vague impropriety and mentioned that his mother was murdered in Lexington years ago.

As I surveyed the crowd at the Main Street business incubator Awesome Inc., people were glancing at each other with “what the …. ?” looks. Whatever credibility Horine had as a serious candidate evaporated. He seemed more motivated by his own issues than Lexington’s issues.

Aside from the Skip Horine sideshow, the forum offered good discussion on a variety of issues, but few surprises. The three major candidates said jobs and economic development are the biggest issues Lexington faces. Horine said the biggest issue is “trust” of city government (see above).

Newberry had good answers to many questions, but was defensive and aggressive for an incumbent.  Gray made good points about his business expertise and the need for more visionary leadership, but some of his answers were rambling. Isaac answered many questions well, but portrayed her administration as much more successful than most others remember it. (She was voted out of office four years ago by a wide margin.)

The panel’s journalists were me, Bill Bryant of WKYT-TV, Erik Carlson of Business Lexington and Kenny Colston of the Kentucky Kernel, UK’s student newspaper. The bloggers were Bianca Spriggs, Joe Sonka and Steve Smith of UK College Republicans. The forum was organized by Kakie Urch, assistant professor of new media at the University of Kentucky’s School of Journalism and Telecommunications. It was sponsored by the Scripps Howard First Amendment Center at UK.

I was too busy asking questions, listening to answers and condensing them into dozens of 140-character Twitter posts to take notes. But Herald-Leader Andy Mead has a well-done news story summarizing the forum. Read it here.

If this forum was any indication, the 2010 Lexington mayor’s race will be interesting. Let’s hope that amidst the bragging, blaming, posturing and Twilight Zone moments the candidates will give voters some clear information about who would do the best job of helping make a fine city even better.

This entry was posted on February 25, 2010 at 12:11 am and is filed under Development, Environment, Ideas, Lexington, media, Politics, technology. Tagged: jim gray, jim newberry, lexington mayor's race, lexington mayoral campaign, Skip Horine, teresa isaac. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.