Matt Bevin and Andy Beshear talk trash in no-holds barred weekend at Fancy Farm

Gov. Matt Bevin brought a familiar prop to the stage Saturday at the St. Jerome Parish Picnic in Fancy Farm.

About two minutes into his speech, which was largely devoid of the typical Fancy Farm barbs, Bevin walked back to his seat and pulled out a print-out of an invitation to a fundraiser for Attorney General Andy Beshear where one of the hosts was the owner of Kentucky’s only remaining abortion clinic.

“You talk about collusion,” Bevin said over a sustained chorus of boos from Democrats under the pavilion. “The only collusion that has ever ever happened in Kentucky is the collusion between this attorney general, Attorney General (Greg) Stumbo before that and (Jack) Conway and all the rest of them and the abortion industry in Kentucky.”

The invitation and line of attack was familiar. It was the same one Bevin used Thursday to accuse Beshear of accepting “blood money,” setting the tone for a no-holds barred weekend between the two longstanding political rivals in the kick-off to Kentucky’s fall election season.

Beshear said Friday night that no contributions have ever influenced decisions in the Office of the Attorney General and called Bevin “erratic,” saying Bevin’s “violent language is irresponsible and gets people hurt.”

“This governor has become unhinged,” Beshear told reporters at the Marshall County Democratic Party’s bean supper Friday night. “He said the other day that somebody dies in a casino every night through suicide. You all know that’s entirely fabricated. It’s irresponsible and it raises serious concerns about his ability to serve as governor.”

Beshear’s father, former Governor Steve Beshear, took it a step further after he repeated his son’s line about Bevin being unhinged and was asked if he was implying the governor suffered from a mental illness.

“That’s between him and his psychiatrist,” the elder Beshear said.

On the Fancy Farm stage, however, Beshear avoided the abortion topic even as Republicans passed out fliers and held up signs about the issue. He started by unloading a few one-liners aimed at Bevin before going into his stump speech. First, he knocked a rhyme Bevin delivered last month on video, criticizing Beshear for raising money with U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia.

“Governor, your staff lets you do that and you fired Janeen Hampton’s staff?” Beshear said, referring to the Bevin Administration’s decision to fire two of the lieutenant governor’s top staffers.

As Republican’s chanted “Longmeyer,” referencing Beshear’s former deputy attorney general who went to prison for political bribery, Beshear called Bevin a “radical,” and invoked an image Bevin has often used on the campaign trail — of cleaning out a barn after a long winter — against the governor.

“While you’re more show pony than workhorse, you’ve left a lot of manure,” Beshear said. “And the only thing we’re shoveling out of Frankfort this fall is you, right out of town.”

Both Bevin and Beshear used the weekend to hit on the themes that have become familiar over the course of their campaign, this time for a Western Kentucky audience.

Bevin, who’s battling his own negative reputation through much of the state, painted the race as a matter of contrast between conservatives and liberals, saying a vote for Beshear would move Kentucky backward. The only moment he was able to silence the Democrats, who were holding signs saying “Bevin is Wrong,” came at the end of his speech when Bevin asked the crowd to join him in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Meanwhile, Beshear once again painted the race as the “difference between right and wrong,” going after Bevin for both his stance on Medicaid and public schools while criticizing the governor for his controversial rhetoric.

It was Beshear’s running mate, Jacqueline Coleman, who took it to Bevin with the traditional Fancy Farm zinger, comparing Bevin to the unpopular-in-Kentucky basketball player Christian Laettner.

“They’re both privileged private school kids,” Coleman said. “They’re both infamous for taking cheap shots and they can dish it out but they can’t take it.”

She also had a line for her opponent, state Sen. Ralph Alvarado, a Winchester physician.

“Senator Alvarado, what does it feel like running with the least popular governor in the country?” Coleman asked. “That sounds like political malpractice than me, but Ralph you know a lot more about malpractice than I do.”

For his part, Alvarado stuck to touting Bevin’s record and hammered home Bevin’s focus on abortion rights, christening Beshear “Abortion Andy.”

Earlier in the day, Bevin dismissed Beshear’s insults and the attorney general’s call for him to fire the secretary of the Kentucky Labor Cabinet in the aftermath of the Blackjewel mining bankruptcy.

“You’ll hear a lot of idiotic things come out of Beshear and Stumbo for the next three and a half months and then we won’t have to listen to them any more,” Bevin said.

This story was originally published August 3, 2019 at 6:24 PM.