The Bluegrass and Beyond

State Rep. Darryl Owens has a good idea; he just hasn’t taken it far enough.

The Louisville Democrat proposed legislation last week that would end a 160-year-old requirement that Kentucky state officers, legislators and lawyers swear they haven’t been dueling.

The state constitution requires them to swear that: “… (I) have not fought a duel with deadly weapons within this State nor out of it, nor have I sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, nor have I acted as second in carrying a challenge, nor aided or assisted any person thus offending, so help me God.”

The oath never fails to elicit giggles and snickering at otherwise dignified swearing-in ceremonies, and Owens thinks that is bad for Kentucky’s image. Besides, the state’s last known duel was fought in 1867.

I’m for anything that improves Kentucky’s image. And there’s a lot about our 1891 constitution that needs changing. But this issue is worth a closer look.

The Kentucky Encyclopedia says there were 41 duels fought in the state between 1790 and 1867. Sixteen men died, but there were never any prosecutions. In an attempt to end the illegal practice, the oath has been part of Kentucky’s constitution since 1849.

When you think about it, the oath was a smart idea that worked pretty well. That’s because duels were generally fought by ambitious men, the same men who wanted to be Kentucky’s lawyers, legislators and state officials.

So instead of just deleting the archaic anti-dueling language, as Owens wants to do, let’s think about modern illegal activities that persist among the ambitious men and women who now seek to be Kentucky’s lawyers, legislators and state officials.

With that idea in mind, here’s my proposed rewrite of Section 228 of the Kentucky Constitution:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and be faithful and true to the Commonwealth of Kentucky so long as I continue a citizen thereof, and that I will faithfully execute, to the best of my ability, the office of …. according to law.

And I do further solemnly swear (or affirm) that since the adoption of the present Constitution, I, being a citizen of this State, have not lined my pockets nor enhanced my political standing by any of the following means:

■ Paving constituents’ driveways and private roads; buying votes; conspiring with highway contractors to rig or award bids; arranging sweetheart deals to lease or sell my property to public agencies;

■ Accepting money, favors or jobs from lobbyists and special interests; giving government jobs or huge taxpayer-funded raises to my friends, relatives or supporters; steering public work to my businesses; doing special favors for my friends, relatives and campaign contributors; eating high on the hog at fancy restaurants or visiting strip clubs on the public tab; so help me God.

My proposed oath would narrow the field of potential lawyers, legislators and state officials, perhaps urging more honest men and women to get involved in the law and public life. Plus, can you think of a more effective system for term limits?

OK, so maybe it wouldn’t eliminate giggles and snickering at public swearing-in ceremonies. But, like the once-useful dueling ban, it would do a lot to improve Kentucky’s image — and a whole lot more.

FANCY FARM — The governor was vacationing in Florida. Members of Congress were working in Washington. The audience was smaller and less rowdy than usual. Even the traditionally oppressive heat stayed away from this year’s Fancy Farm Picnic.

With no statewide elections this year, the best reason to make the long drive to Graves County on Saturday was the barbecue, fresh vegetables and homemade pies prepared by the families of St. Jerome parish.

The focus of this year’s political speaking was the 2010 U.S. Senate race, which turned into a wide-open contest last week, when Republican incumbent Jim Bunning, 77, became the last person in Kentucky to realize it was time for him to retire.

Three Republicans and four Democrats who are seeking their parties’ nominations for the seat next May spoke to the crowd. I found them all disappointing. Click here to hear the speeches.

Democrat supporter Thomas Kirby of Clinton was among those at the 129th annual Fancy Farm Picnic. Photo by Tom Eblen

When they weren’t beating up on each other, the Democrats were blaming eight years of Republican government for the nation’s economic problems. The Republicans were stoking fear about what might happen as a result of Democrats’ efforts to solve those problems.

The sharpest words came from the two Democratic frontrunners, Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo and Attorney General Jack Conway.

Mongiardo, a Hazard physician and coal industry advocate, tried to portray himself as the candidate of the common man. He attacked Conway, of Louisville, for his Duke University education and alleged “silver spoon” background.

Then Mongiardo tried to link Conway to President Barack Obama’s “cap-and-trade” legislation, which is designed to reduce pollution from burning coal. It was a stretch. Besides, Fancy Farm seemed like an odd place to argue, in essence, that concerns about man-made climate change are unfounded.

Western Kentucky’s trees remain bent and broken from last fall’s bizarre hurricane winds and last winter’s crippling ice storm. It’s usually about 100 degrees at the Fancy Farm Picnic. This year, temperatures never left the low 80s, while, across the country, usually balmy Seattle is gripped by a heat wave.

Conway, whose supporters held up signs that said “Mongiardo doesn’t know Jack,” took a few verbal swipes at the doctor and showed he knows how to cuss. The attorney general talked about how much he has worked on consumer-protection issues.

Secretary of State Trey Grayson’s speech was straight from the conservative playbook, complete with sneering references to Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reed and House Speaker Nancy Pelonsi.

Grayson needed to play to the GOP’s conservative base. His main challenger is Bowling Green eye doctor Rand Paul, son of Texas congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul, the darling of libertarians.

Paul attacked Republicans and Democrats alike. He talked about balanced budgets and held up a thick stack of paper, saying senators shouldn’t vote on any bill they haven’t fully read. At one point, somebody in the GOP cheering section behind me yelled, “You’re boring!”

Three virtual unknowns cast themselves as alternatives to politics as usual: Democrats Darlene Fitzgerald Price, a former U.S. Customs agent from McCreary County, and Maurice Sweeney, a businessman from Jefferson County; and Republican Bill Johnson, a Todd County businessman.

The Fancy Farm crowd is always more interested in heckling than listening, so it’s hard to tell which candidates’ messages might resonate with average voters. For me, the most relevant words came from State Auditor Crit Luallen, once you filtered out her obligatory Democratic partisanship.

Crit Luallen

As citizens have seen jobs disappear, Luallen said, “they have watched banking scandals unfold, the meltdown on Wall Street, the disclosure of extravagant corporate perks and irresponsible spending of their tax dollars by public leaders. The American people have had it up to here. They’ve said enough is enough.”

What voters want is accountability, and she said it is not a partisan issue.

“These are times that demand leaders with integrity to restore trust, leaders with principles to act responsibly, leaders with the courage to take on powerful interests and leaders who will insure accountability for your hard-earned money,” she said.

“It’s time to honor the public’s demands for greater accountability. Every public leader is a guardian of the taxpayer’s trust. And we must all recommit ourselves to honor and hold sacred that trust.”

It was a good speech. But I couldn’t help but think Luallen should have delivered it facing the stage rather than the audience.

Listen to the Fancy Farm Picnic speeches of the three Democrats and three Republicans running for their parties’ nominations to the U.S. Senate in 2010. They’re listed here in the order they spoke to the crowd in Graves County on Saturday. (Click on the link to hear each candidate’s speech.)

Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo (Democrat)

Attorney Gen. Jack Conway (Democrat)

Secretary of State Trey Grayson (Republican)

Darlene Fitzgerald Price (Democrat)

Bill Johnson (Republican)

Maurice Sweeney (Democrat)

Rand Paul (Republican)

In addition to the 2010 Senate candidates, here are remarks from State Auditor Crit Luallen (Democrat)

Attorney Gen. Jack Conway, left, and Secretary of State Trey Grayson chat on the stage before the speaking began Saturday at the 129th annual Fancy Farm Picnic in Graves County. Conway, a Democrat, and Grayson, a Republican, are seeking their parties' nominations for the U.S. Senate in 2010. Photo by Tom Eblen

Kentucky has no shortage of organizations trying to lift the state up from the bottom of various national rankings of social and economic progress.

So I thought I would report on one of the first and most successful of these groups, the Committee for Kentucky, and what today’s do-gooders — and public officials — might learn from it.

I hadn’t heard of the Committee for Kentucky until last month, when I was rummaging through the shelves of the used-book store in the basement of Lexington’s Central Library.

I came across a tattered copy of Kentucky on the March, which was published in 1949 to tout the committee’s work. The book had endorsement blurbs from Vice President Alben Barkley and former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The cover illustration cracked me up: A Kentucky colonel, lit cigar in hand, purposely striding toward “progress.”

The Committee for Kentucky was formed in 1944 and headed by Harry Schacter, the book’s author and president of the now-defunct Louisville department store Kaufman-Straus. Even without the sanctimonious tone of writing so popular in that era, the book makes clear why the committee was formed: Kentucky was a mess.

One in four native Kentuckians had left the state in the early 1940s for jobs elsewhere. One in three Kentucky children received no education; seven of eight never graduated from high school. Kentucky had the nation’s second-highest rate of illiteracy. Poverty and ill-health were rampant.

The committee’s founders, hardened by the Great Depression and energized by World War II, began by engaging the state’s academic community in studying how Kentucky had gotten in such sorry shape.

The conclusion was that Kentucky in the early 1900s hadn’t invested in education or in developing a modern economy and infrastructure. Like most other Southern states except North Carolina, Kentucky had looked backward rather than forward. There was a “clannish family society” and a lack of diversity in the work force.

The committee concluded that among the biggest issues facing Kentucky were these: Health, education, economic development, the use of natural resources, a hopelessly outdated constitution and a visceral aversion to taxes.

And there was this observation: “Somehow Kentuckians diverted to politics the social energy which should have gone into improving business, developing industry, and extending educational and welfare services. Because of our tremendous preoccupation with politics, we seem to have earned the slogan that ‘politics are the damndest in Kentucky.’”

Sixty years later, does any of this sound familiar?

The committee then set out to create what it called a “moral climate” for change, using weekly newspaper columns, radio programs, school essay contests and community meetings and projects.

Schacter wrote that some powerful business interests didn’t support the committee’s work. “Those who were the beneficiaries of the status quo were not at all interested in any change,” he wrote. “Those who were victims of the status quo were too apathetic to be much concerned about change.”

The committee also faced opposition because it included representatives of organized labor and the African American community, an especially radical move in the 1940s.

Still, the committee sparked civic engagement across the state, contributed to the creation of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and spearheaded a bipartisan effort that led to tax increases for better roads, schools and social services. The committee’s efforts lay the groundwork for several progressive governors who followed. (But we’re still stuck with that hopelessly outdated constitution.)

In the book, Schacter cites several keys to the committee’s success:

It didn’t sugar-coat Kentucky’s problems. Evidence was gathered and problems publicized. Real, practical solutions were proposed and fought for.

The committee avoided taking sides politically, always emphasizing that its only agenda was improving the lives of Kentuckians. “This was important because the people of Kentucky take their politics so seriously that they have a tendency to read political bias into every important public activity,” Schacter wrote.

The committee operated on little money and refused state appropriations to maintain its independence.

After almost six years of work and accomplishment, the committee voted itself out of existence in 1950. It wanted to avoid the temptation to become a self-perpetuating bureaucracy.

Kentucky has made a lot of progress since the 1940s, but other states have made more. We remain near the bottom of many national rankings of social and economic progress, despite six decades of good work of many public-interest groups.

At the moment, we seem to have our hands full trying to survive the current economic slump. But once this crisis has passed, what’s the next step, and the next?

What will it take to create the “moral climate” in Kentucky to really invest for success in the 21st Century and beyond?

FANCY FARM — I was glad I had just filled up on barbecue, because the political speaking Saturday afternoon at the 128th annual Fancy Farm Picnic was anything but satisfying.

This year’s focus was Democrat Bruce Lunsford’s challenge of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader who has held the seat for 24 years. It was no surprise that Lunsford and other Democrats would come out swinging — or that McConnell wouldn’t even mention Lunsford’s name, leaving that job to fellow Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning.

As always, the thousand or so people who crowded around the stage were mostly partisans who came to shout down speakers from the other party. And, of course, there were costumed characters walking through the crowd.

Young Republicans dressed as Arab sheiks, “thanking” Lunsford for higher oil prices, through some stretch of the political imagination. Young Democrats dressed as characters with the names “Texas Oilman Mitch” and “Bush’s Lapdog Mitch.”

Democrats bashed President Bush and his administration; Republicans stirred up fears of what “San Francisco” and “Chicago” liberals might do if they were in charge. Much of the rhetoric focused on oil prices — as if American politicians have much influence on commodity prices in a rapidly changing global economy.

It had to be an eye-glazing experience for the few average voters in attendance. And there probably were a few — people from Fancy Farm and other Western Kentucky towns who came more for the food or the bingo or the car raffle than for the politicians’ speeches.

It seemed like a disappointing afternoon, until the candidates for the local state Senate seat got up to speak. The Republican incumbent, Ken Winters, 74, and his Democratic challenger, Carol Hubbard, 71, took the conversation in a different direction.

Hubbard and Winters talked about the need for better schools and more economic development in the seven rural counties that make up the 1st Senate District. It’s a region that has lost population as factories have moved overseas and farming has declined.

Both mentioned specific school building and renovation projects that were needed, and Hubbard used Gov. Steve Beshear’s presence on the stage to lobby for a stoplight at a nearby intersection. The only point of contention seemed to be whether Democrats or Republicans deserved the most credit for getting Fancy Farm a new school.

Hubbard mentioned that this was his 40th Fancy Farm Picnic. But what went unmentioned — even by his opponent — was his record, both political and criminal. After holding this state Senate seat a generation ago, Hubbard served 16 years in Congress before going to prison for misusing his office for personal gain.

You would have thought Winters, an accomplished educator and former president of Campbellsville University, might have said more about it than this remark at the very end of his speech: “My record is clean. If you want to know more about the other candidates on the stage, including my opponent, you may want to Google us and see what you find.”

Of course, his constituents knew all about Hubbard and probably had formed an opinion of him, one way or another, years ago. I’m sure they cared more about bringing new jobs to the district, building and renovating schools and even getting that new stoplight.

Unlike the old saying, all politics aren’t local. But the most meaningful politics at this year’s Fancy Farm Picnic may have been.

FANCY FARM — There was a special Mass at 7 a.m. Friday at St. Jerome Catholic Church in this small Graves County town. Then the priest blessed 18,500 pounds of meat, and the people of the parish got cooking.

Of course, they had already been working for weeks. Before the men could put 10,000 pounds of pork and 8,500 pounds of mutton on the long rows of brick and block barbecue pits beside the school yard, the families had to get a lot of other work done.

They had to help pick, shuck and cut 150 gallons of sweet corn. They had to pick bushels of tomatoes and cucumbers from their gardens. They had to boil and peel 800 pounds of potatoes for the potato salad. There were the chickens to fry and the homemade pies to bake.

More than 10,000 people are expected to attend Saturday’s 128th annual Fancy Farm Picnic, which always seems to come on the hottest weekend of the year.

The picnic is famous for the spicy political speeches that will be made Saturday afternoon by candidates for local, state and national office.

At least since A.B. ”Happy“ Chandler came in 1931 and considered it the good-luck charm of his first election as governor, Fancy Farm has been where Kentucky politicians begin the fall campaign by extolling their virtues and blasting their rivals. It’s old-time political theater, as it was before campaign rhetoric was reduced to 30-second attack ads.

”Some come for the political speaking, some come for the food, some come for the bingo and some come for the (bluegrass) bands,“ said Todd Hayden, chairman of the picnic for the past eight years. ”And then the finale of the picnic, you might say, is when we raffle off a car.“

The picnic is a Kentucky tradition and a dandy fund-raiser for St. Jerome, which clears about $100,000 each year, Hayden said. And back in the 1980s, when everybody seemed to want to be in the Guinness Book of World Records, Fancy Farm was formally recognized as the world’s largest one-day picnic.

But for the descendants of the Catholic pioneers from Maryland who settled these rolling, wooded fields in 1826, the picnic is so much more than all of that.

”Just look around at how people work together; they all know their jobs,“ Ralph Stamper said as his lifelong friends and neighbors shuttled hot coals to the barbecue pits from seven huge ”fire barrels“ filled with slabs of hickory.

Fancy Farm natives who have moved away often plan their vacations for this week, so they can come back to help, or attend family or school reunions, Eddie Carrico said. Like his father before him, Carrico, 62, has helped cook picnic barbecue all of his life.

”It’s like a big family reunion,“ he said. ”It helps keep the community together.“

I enjoy the political theater, hate the heat and never cared much for bingo. But what always makes the Fancy Farm picnic worth the drive for me is the food. The $10 all-you-can-eat buffet at the Knights of Columbus hall is easily the commonwealth’s best annual meal.

And I’ve always wondered: How do they do it?

Barbecued mutton is a Western Kentucky peculiarity, made even more peculiar by the fact that there are almost no live sheep here. Fancy Farm’s mutton is trucked in from Iowa and Nebraska.

Once Mass is done and the food is blessed, trucks of mutton and pork are unloaded, the meat cut and placed on wire mesh inside the long barbecue pits. The pits are then covered with sheet-metal panels to keep in the smoke, which must escape through small vents in the pits’ masonry walls.

Hickory coals are then carried with long-handled shovels from the fire barrels to be placed inside the bottom of the pits. Hayden said Fancy Farm’s cooks baste the meat with a thin vinegar-based sauce — the recipe, of course, is a secret — three or four times during cooking.

After more than 16 hours of cooking, the meat is done by about 4 a.m. Then a second crew of church men relieve the cooks to keep the meat warm and cut it up for the big buffet, for the sandwich stands on the picnic grounds and for sale by the pound.

One thing is for sure: By about 6 p.m. Saturday, all of the meat will be gone.

Stamper, who has lived next to the barbecue pits since he was a boy, said there’s something magical about Fancy Farm during picnic weekend each year. So many people. So much food. And the air all over town is thick with sweet smoke.

”When I was a kid, we would put a box fan in our upstairs window and turn it so it would draw the smoky smell into our room,“ he said. ”Mmmm. We would be so hungry by the next morning, we could hardly wait for the picnic to start.“

Kentucky Educational Television’s weekly public affairs show “Comment on Kentucky” broadcast live Friday night from the political speaking arena at Fancy Farm. Host Ferrell Wellman, facing, chats with guests Mark Hebert of Louisville’s WHAS, left, Ronnie Ellis of CNHI newspapers, and Bill Bartleman of the Paducah Sun, hidden. On Saturday afternoon, candidates for state, local and national office will speak to several thousand supporters and hecklers there. Photo by Tom Eblen

Ben Thompson waits Friday morning for more pork shoulders to be brought to the barbecue pit at Fancy Farm. Photo by Tom Eblen

St. Jerome Catholic Church in the small Graves County community of Fancy Farm had a 7 a.m. mass Friday, then the priest blessed the meat and the people of the church got cooking.

They’re working all day and night Friday to prepare 18,500 pounds of barbecued pork and mutton for the more than 10,000 people expected here Saturday for the church’s annual picnic. It’s the Commonwealth’s best meal of the year, and a chance to hear Kentucky politicians take their best verbal shots at each other.

Be sure to get Saturday and Sunday’s Herald-Leader for full coverage of the politics, the food and the scene. And watch this blog, PolWatchers and Kentucky.com all weekend for updates.