Dems are going all-out for Darrell Pugh

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By BERRY CRAIG

AFT Local 1360

It's just a special election for one vacant state Senate seat.

But Kentucky Democrats seem to be going all out for their candidate, Darrell Pugh of Pikeville.

All six living former Democratic governors are set to stump for him Tuesday in Lexington. The Kentucky Democratic Party is touting the evening event an "historic gathering." Click here to RSVP: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/feb26

Endorsed by the Kentucky State AFL-CIO, Pugh is a small business owner who's battling Republican lawyer Phillip Wheeler, also of Pikeville, for Democrat Ray Jones' old 31st District seat.

The election is March 5. Jones is also from Pikeville, seat of Pike County, which is as far east as Kentucky goes. He had to step down because he was elected county judge-executive last November.

The ex-governors going to bat for Pugh are state Sen. Julian Carroll (in office from 1974 to 1979), John Y. Brown Jr. (1979-1983), Martha Layne Collins (1983-1987), Brereton Jones (1991-1995), Paul Patton (1995-2003) and Steve Beshear (2007-2015).

The gathering of govs reminds me of a story the late Thomas Dionysius Clark, Kentucky's greatest historian, loved to tell on Gov. Augustus Owsley Stanley. Fond of his toddy, the indomitable Henderson Democrat was elected in 1915 even though he got drunk and vomited in public on the campaign trail.

After he was out of office, Stanley schmoozed with some other former governors at a big event in Louisville, according to Clark. "Fellas, there's two things I've had and never want again," Stanley announced. "Gonorrhea and the governorship of Kentucky."

He might have been half lit. "Sufficiently fired with Old Crow, Stanley could make himself heard across the narrow waist of Kentucky," Clark wrote of Stanley, who resigned the governorship in 1919 to head to Washington and the U.S. Senate.  

Meanwhile, who can blame the Democrats for being doubly determined keep one of their own representing  upland Elliott, Lawrence, Martin, Morgan and Pike counties in the legislature's upper chamber.

The party can ill afford to lose another Senate seat. Henderson Sen. Dorsey Ridley's unexpected loss on Nov. 6 boosted the already hefty GOP edge to 28-10.

A Pugh win would at least restore the status quo and give the Dems some momentum going into what should be a competitive governor's race.