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Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin busts a rhyme in new campaign attack
Bevin mimics rap style to blast Democrat Andy Beshear for getting fundraising help from Tim Kaine
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
LOUISVILLE (CFP) — The querulous contest for Kentucky governor has featured a bumper crop of snide comments and personal inventive between two men who treat each other with ill-concealed contempt. But the race has now descended to a completely new level of weird.
With awkward Republican rap.
In an effort to criticize Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear for accepting fundraising help from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 running mate, Tim Kaine, Republican Governor Matt Bevin posted a video in which he busts into rhyme rap style, albeit without a soundtrack:
“Tim Kaine, are you serious? You think the voters of Kentucky are delirious?”
Bevin continues by noting that “a couple of years past tense, he debated with our man Mike Pence.”
“Well, he might tell you he debated, but he got obliterated, dominated, annihilated, all his weak ideas eviscerated.”
Then, after including an infamous clip in which Clinton bragged about putting coal miners out of business, Bevin says Kaine “clearly hates Kentucky, but Little Andy thinks he’s lucky, so he had him send this letter. Must have thought that it was better than Hillary, or maybe Bernie, or maybe Nancy, or maybe AOC [U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez].”
The governor concludes: “If he thinks these folks will get him over the hump, good for him. I’d rather work with Donald Trump.”
Asked for comment by the Lexington Herald-Leader, Beshear’s campaign manager, Eric Hyers, threw down.
“Once again,” Hyers said, “Matt Bevin has embarrassed both himself and Kentucky.”
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Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin dumps Lieutenant Governor Jenean Hampton from ticket
Hampton, a Tea Party favorite, was first African American to hold statewide office
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
FRANKFORT, Kentucky (CFP) — Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin has switched running mates for his 2019 re-election bid, dropping Lieutenant Governor Jenean Hampton in favor of State Senator Ralph Alvarado.
At a January 25 news conference in the Capitol rotunda unveiling the new team, Bevin did not offer a detailed explanation for the change, saying only that he chose not to run with Hampton “because I chose to run with Ralph Alvarado.”
He described Hampton — the first African American to ever hold statewide office in Kentucky — as a “dear and personal friend” and “an extraordinary lieutenant governor.”
Tea Party groups who backed Bevin in his 2015 race had been lobbying him to keep Hampton, an Air Force veteran and Tea Party activist from Bowling Green who had never held elected office before Bevin picked her as his running mate.
Kentucky Lieutenant Governor Jenean Hampton
Hampton did not make any immediate comment about her departure from Bevin’s gubernatorial ticket, although she told her hometown paper, the Bowling Green Daily News, that she wanted to continue as lieutenant governor.
Alvarado, 48, is a physician from Winchester who was first elected to the Senate in 2014, becoming the first Latino to serve in the commonwealth’s legislature. The son of immigrant parents, he gave an address at the 2016 Republican National Convention, partially in Spanish.
“I’m humbled the governor has even considered me,” Alvarado said of his selection. “I think the vision that he has had for this state needs to be carried on and carried forward.”
Alvarado’s presence on the ticket could help Bevin mend his frayed relations with Republicans in the legislature, with whom he has sparred over pension reform, an issue that has roiled politics in the Bluegrass over the past two years.
Bevin, whose job approval rating in a December Mason-Dixon poll lagged at just 38 percent, is facing a GOP primary challenge from one of Alvarado’s legislative colleagues, State Rep. Robert Goforth from London.
However, Alvarado could also become a target for Bevin’s Democratic opponents due to his record in the legislature.
Alvarado helped push through a controversial law that made it more difficult for patients to pursue malpractice claims against doctors, which was unanimously struck down by the Kentucky Supreme Court.
The Lexington Herald-Leader also reported that Alvarado works for several nursing homes that have been rated as being of substandard quality by federal inspectors while pushing legislation that would make it more difficult for nursing home patients to sue.
Three Democrats are running for their party’s nomination to oppose Bevin — Attorney General Andy Beshear, House Minority Leader Rocky Adkins from Sandy Hook and former State Auditor Adam Edelen.
The primary is May 21.
The Mason-Dixon poll in December showed Beshear with an 8-point lead over Bevin in a head-to-head match up, right at the poll’s margin of error; Adkins and Bevin were even.
Kentucky is one of 13 states where candidates for governor select a running mate, rather than electing lieutenant governors separately. The only other Southern state using this system is Florida.
In Kentucky, the duties of the lieutenant governor are limited to participation on several state boards and taking over in the event a governor cannot continue in office. The lieutenant governor does not preside of the State Senate, as is the case in 26 other states
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