With Lunsford Missing, Senate debate focuses on McConnell

Wednesday night’s Democratic debate in Louisville between two of the candidates vying for the chance to challenge four-term U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Louisville) was a mostly cordial affair marked by the absence of apparent frontrunner Bruce Lunsford.

Debate organizers invited all three Louisville-based candidates to the event but Lunsford – a Louisville businessman and two-time gubernatorial candidate – never confirmed due to an unspecified scheduling conflict.

While Lunsford was represented by an empty chair at the dais, physician Michael Cassaro and businessman Greg Fischer did not mention him until the end.  Still, Lunsford’s absence was on the mind of many in the crowd of 200-plus at a local Louisville UAW headquarters.

“When I walked in here tonight, everyone came up to me and said ‘Where’s Bruce?’” noted moderator Mark Herbert, of local television station WHAS-11, during his opening remarks.

Lunsford is the candidate to beat in the Democratic primary. According to recent poll numbers released by the Fischer campaign, Lunsford is 15 points ahead of Fischer – Lunsford’s closest competition. The Fischer camp has gone on the offensive, claiming Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chair and New York Senator Chuck Schumer is “trying to manipulate this election” from Washington by supporting Lunsford.

Throughout the hour-long discussion, however, Cassaro and Fischer avoided mentioning each other or Lunsford. They stuck to recitations of their platforms and assaults on McConnell. McConnell presently sits on an extensive campaign war chest thanks in part to his role as Senate Minority Leader, but many Democrats view his seat as vulnerable due to his close association with President Bush.

McConnell was ranked as the seventh most powerful earlier this month by Knowlegis (http://www.congress.org/congressorg/power_rankings/index.tt/), but Fischer said McConnell’s position on that list was not paying dividends for the state.

“The question is how has Mitch McConnell used his power,” said Fischer. “Tell me one of our quality of life indicators in Kentucky that has gone the right way while Mitch McConnell has been in power. That is the kind of power we don’t need.”

While the two candidates echoed each other on many issues, such as support for a roll-back on Iraq war funding, some contrasts did emerge.

Cassaro called for the outright repeal of the Patriot act, while Fischer argued for a careful review of its provisions.  Fischer was pointed in his support of universal health care, claiming that inefficiencies in the current system could be remedied to provide sufficient funding for new programs. Cassaro called for a “minimum safety net” system, and argued that regulatory burdens on health care providers were responsible for increasing costs.

Lunsford only came up in allusions to several well-publicized incidents in Lunsford’s past that Fischer attempted to draw the absent candidate into the discussion. In his closing statement, Fischer called for Democrats to elect a candidate with “a clean business record” - a charge likely alluding to Lunsford’s position on the boards of health care providers Vencor , Inc. and Ventas, Inc. which were fined more than $100 million by the federal government.

“Clearly, the people of Kentucky want to hear from Bruce. He has got a past and people want to hear about that…It’s a shame it wasn’t a full debate and maybe next time Bruce will decide to show up,” said Fischer, following the debate.

“Whatever commitment he had must have been some real strong commitment because there was certainly a lot of time to re-arrange his schedule,” noted Cassaro, who claimed he confirmed for the event as early as January.

No other debates are confirmed at this time, but several are anticipated to be scheduled. Lunsford’s campaign manager Brad Katz noted that his candidate is “looking forward to similar events in the future.”