Ryan Vows to Outwork Ed Whitfield
July 5, 2008. St. Denis Catholic Church, Graves County, KY.
Heather Ryan and Ed Whitfield, both 1st District Congressional candidates, showed up and worked the Murray Freedom Festival. But only Ryan came to the St. Denis Parish Church picnic.
Each year, on the day after July 4, St. Denis Catholic Church holds a daylong celebration for local families, and their kinfolk who come home to visit, to raise money for the church Between 6,000 and 7,000 adults and children attend for the bingo, games, music, and barbecue.
The barbecue is cooked in two massive 40 foot long tents behind the church. These tents cover the “pits” which are actually a series of long ovens in which pork and mutton are fired and smoked.
The pits are fired around 7: 00 the evening of the 4th by thirty volunteers, who take turns during the night to cook 6,500 pounds of pork and mutton. By 5:00 a.m., the meat is ready.
This is an old fashioned family day outing. Games are played. Music is played. Ice cream and barbecue are devoured. Lawn chairs are out in force, as friends and families talk of life.
The little community of St. Denis Church and the larger urban center of Murray, home of Freedom Fest, share common ground on which families celebrate American history and the birth of American freedoms. Neither of these events feature political debate, but candidates show up to shake hands and kiss babies. For the Purchase area, these events are warm ups to St. Jerome Catholic Church’s Fancy Farm Picnic, the world’s largest picnic.
On the first Saturday in August, two things will happen at Fancy Farm. The first is about family and the food. Over 10,000 ponds of Barbecue pork and mutton will be eaten. Several hundred games of bingo will have been played by the end of the day.
The second major event to occur at Fancy Farm will be the opening shots and close in engagement of two major opposing political armies meeting in close quarters for the first time in the 2008 election. Fancy Farm is unique in that the events on the first weekend in August will define many of the themes and campaign strategies to be used through out the political fight all the way to election night in November.
Many of the 10,000 plus visitors to be players and spectators in the events of this day will witness how new Presidential teams will debate the fate of America’s future. They will hear the candidates for US Senator fight over who should speak for Kentucky in the Senate.
The crowd will also hear a new voice for the Democrats, Heather Ryan, take on the long term serving incumbent Republican Ed Whitfield for the right to lay claim to Kentucky’s 1st congressional seat.
However, on this July 4th long weekend, the food was hot at St. Denis Church picnic, but unlike its big cousin, the Fancy Farm picnic, the talk of politics was cool. A single candidate for US Congress was the only political person working the crowd on this day. She and her campaign staff mingled and talked issues with the people in lawn chairs and in the food lines.
When pressed for views on issues that they were worried about, most people at this picnic named (1) the cost of gas and diesel fuel (2) general state of the economy and (3) health care. Several individuals said that they were Democrats but were mad at Congress. They like Whitfield (Republican) but had doubts about Mitch McConnell.
Asked why she came to this picnic, Democratic Congressional candidate Heather Ryan
said. “I intend to outwork Exxon Ed Whitfield to where he will half to spend $10,000 dollars for every $ 1 dollar I spend. This is not a normal election year. The people are hurting and I intend to go to them, wherever they are. I will take this campaign straight to all the people and force Whitfield to respond to the voters of the 1st District on why he has failed them for so many years!”
Across the back roads of this part of Kentucky, a slow anger over government was mounting. An itch was there, but people didn’t quite know how to scratch it, yet.
On this day of freedom celebrations, doubts and cracks in the political status quo were seen to be developing in far Western Kentucky
