The day began auspiciously. The terrific bluegrass band from Frankfort was back to entertain before the main act began. Bishop  William Medley avoided a long political statement in his prayer, a departure from prior years.

The singers were new and quite good. Mayfield Mayor Teresa Cantrell and former Graves’ County Judge John Davis smiled through My Old Kentucky Home.  Jennifer Wilson, the young woman who sang the National Anthem showed off her amazing voice.

Thus was I lulled and unready for the balance of the program.

The political portion of the Fancy Farm Picnic 2011 will go down in my personal log as the worst I have ever attended.

The unbridled (sorry, Guv, the word fits here) hypocrisy, partisanship and just plain nastiness that exuded from the stage and the peanut galley, made Saturday, August 6th a day that I wish never to repeat.

Washington came to Graves County that day. 

Governor Beshear’s sidestepping the traditional eight minute red meat address for a tribute to the troops was greeted with derision by candidate Gatewood Galbraith and contempt by challenger Senator Williams. Reporter Ryan Alessi, Joe Gerth of the Courier Journal and Jack Brammer of the Lexington Herald wrote firsthand accounts of what happened in the three man governor’s race marathon.  I will not echo them here.

What I can say, I believe that the Governor took the trip to the Middle East to disarm the criticism that he would not visit Ft. Campbell last spring to honor Seal Team Six because he knew that a photo trap was waiting for him. Anyone with half a brain realizes that any picture of Governor Steve Beshear standing with President Barack Obama would have been plastered on billboards from Mason to Fulton County and every spot in between. That one photo op would have damaged, maybe fatally, Beshear’s chances of getting re-elected.

I also believe that once the Governor got to the Middle East, he was affected deeply by the courage, passion and heroism of those serving in the theater of war.  Steve Beshear is a career politician, but he is not immune to what he saw. Coming back from visiting wounded soldiers in Germany to the pressure cooker of Fancy Farm, Beshear had to have looked around and been struck by the contrast. 

The problem is that eight minutes of "why I love the troops" was not what the partisans on either side wanted to hear. Those who travel hundreds of miles to see gladiatorial combat are not pleased when one of the lions lays down with the lambs. Thumbs turned down in disapproval. 

After the governor’s speeches, the down ticket candidates from the lieutenant governor candidates to the last on the tickets produced a depressingly similar theme.  There was much new and much good in the speeches. Unfortunately, what was new was not good and what was good was not new.

Here, in a nutshell is what the candidates down ticket said in the order they won the coin toss:

Lieutenant Governor:

Dem. candidate Jerry Abramson said that his running mate, Steve Beshear, is doing a good job.

GOP candidate Richie Farmer said that his running mate, David Williams, is a nice guy - which surprised him.

Ind. candidate Dea Riley wants to see mountains keep their tops. Don’t vote for political parties.

Secretary of State:

GOP Bill Johnson: No address. No vote. Picture IDs.

Dem Alison Lundergan Grimes: Every vote is important.  She’ll work with business.

Auditor:

Dem Adam Edelen: Ten years in the private sector. Endorsed by Crit Luallen.

GOP John Kemper III: Primary responsibility of Auditor is to protect public accounts and be independent.

Attorney General:

Dem Jack Conway:  His office got 300,000 porn photos off internet.

GOP Todd P’Pool: Will sue to stop Obamacare.

Treasurer:

GOP K. C. Crosbie: She will work with state investment committee.

Dem Todd Hollenbach:  Balanced state checkbook and cleaned his own office.

************************

The most significant change this year was the shift from crowd interaction and reaction to the speaker’s words to a canned, planned group assault on the speaker with no regard to the content of his/her speech.  A group of GOP activists came this year not to heckle, but to shout down and obscure the words of any speaker not of their party. Combining props and a shout coach, the group listened not at all. Their practiced cheerleader cadence was prepared to bolster a tag line from every Republican candidate and to denigrate every Democrat.

Democrats failed in an early attempt to seize the day when David Williams stopped his speech because of heckling on the left, sending police officers to confront the heckler. We heard reports of a megaphone being used, a violation of the rules of combat, but we did not hear it and did not see it. After the police went to their side of the pavilion, the Dems subsided. A huge display by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth stayed offstage and out of sight.

Republican activists in costume paraded through the media area, standing in front of reporters to shout at the stage. One young man used his hand to bang on a girder in a credible imitation of a drum. Security on the right side of the stage consisted of one young state policeman standing as motionless as the famous British beefeaters. Neither he nor any of the other security so much as chided the demonstrators. Democratic speakers, emoting for the KET audience, refused to be drawn into recognition of the ear bursting display.

Fancy Farm is famous for hecklers. When someone from the other side stepped up to the microphone, they could expect a shouted response to their words. Hecklers shouted out disagreement and derision. Shutting down hecklers was an art form perfected by adept politicians. Governor Wendell Ford excelled at dealing with heckling. He seemed to relish the challenge of upstaging his critics.

Even Ford would have been unable to overcome the assault on the senses of Fancy Farm 2011.

The lucky ones were those who watched from their own living rooms in air conditioned comfort, drinking their favorite beverage and going to the restroom at will- without having to stand in line. I am told by those who watched Picnic coverage on KET that only the speeches could be heard. According to reports, the cameras stayed firmly focused on the speaker’s platform. While they could hear shouts in the background, the splendor of a full scale attack was lost on them.  Lucky them. 

Next year, I may join them on the couch.