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Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009

Senate race gets muddier

MONGIARDO CAMP SAYS CONWAY INVOLVED IN TAPES

FRANKFORT — Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo's campaign for U.S. Senate is accusing Democratic rival Jack Conway's aides of helping to produce controversial anonymous recordings of Mongiardo.

Mongiardo campaign spokesman Kim Geveden said Monday that Conway's campaign is "neck deep in political dirty tricks."

"Conway's campaign either produced the political attack video that was posted anonymously to a YouTube page on Oct. 7 or it was directly or indirectly involved in its production," Geveden said Monday.

Charles Halloran, a spokesman for Attorney General Conway's campaign, responded to the accusations Monday with a statement that said Mongiardo is "trying to shift the blame away from his ugly comments about the governor, for which he has still not apologized."

When asked directly whether Conway's campaign helped produce the YouTube video, Halloran declined to comment.

In some recordings on the Internet, Mongiardo uses profanity and repeatedly criticizes his boss and supporter, Gov. Steve Beshear. Among other things, Mongiardo is heard saying a "blowup" is coming in the Beshear administration.

Geveden, at a news briefing at Mongiardo's campaign headquarters, produced videos and photos of four Conway campaign staffers videotaping Mongiardo. He said images from video taken by Conway's staffers appeared on the Internet as part of a multimedia package that featured an edited audio recording of Mongiardo.

Mongiardo has said the tapes were heavily edited, but he has not commented on their veracity. Beshear has dismissed them as "political shenanigans."

Geveden said he was not making any allegations about the audio portion of the YouTube video.