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Photo of the Day:  Thursday, March 11, 2010

Lt. Gov. Mongiardo visits Murray, meets with local supporters

With the latest poll numbers showing Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo about 18 points ahead of Attorney General Jack Conway, he says he feels confident that he can become the first Kentucky Democrat since Wendell Ford to ascend to the United States Senate.

Mongiardo was in town Tuesday to attend a campaign function at the Murray Banquet Center as he eyes claiming retiring Sen. Jim Bunning's seat in November. According to the results of a recently released poll from SurveyUSA, Mongiardo leads Conway 45 percent to 27 percent among likely Democratic voters. Among Republicans, Bowling Green eye doctor Rand Paul leads Secretary of State Trey Grayson 42 percent to 27 percent. Both polls had 19 percent saying they were undecided and the rest of the candidate fields with 5 percent support or less.

Mongiardo says he believes he will not only win the Democratic nomination when voters go to the polls on May 18, but will prevail in the general election as well. He said that at this stage in 2004, no one thought he had a chance to come close to beating Sen. Jim Bunning, but he came within 1.4 percent of his vote total when the November election came. Since George W. Bush did very well among Kentucky voters in the same election, Mongiardo said he can win over voters because working families trust him to eschew partisan bickering and help change the culture in Washington, D.C.

Mongiardo, who is from Hazard, said there is a sense of anger all over the country at the gridlock in Washington and voters want someone who will use “rural Kentucky common sense” to solve problems. He said he wants to fix health care, but that his major problem with the bills currently before the House and Senate is that they are attempting to insure 30 million new customers under a “broken” health care system. He said he thought something needed to be done to stop the escalating costs of health care but that the current versions of the legislation don't do that.

Mongiardo said he thinks Kentucky universities could lead the way in doing the research needed to find the most efficient solutions to fixing the health care system, which he believes will bankrupt states and the federal government if it isn't changed. He also believes the state could lead the way on reducing the nation's dependency on foreign oil partly by researching ways to burns coal more cleanly. He said he is against cap-and-trade legislation because Kentucky's electricity providers would not be able to afford it.

Source: MurrayLedger.com