FRANKFORT --
Before the 10,000 or so at this year's Governor's Derby Breakfast could enter the big tent on the Capitol grounds to partake of country ham, eggs and grits, they had to run a small gauntlet of political candidates hungry for their votes."There is not a better event to meet with real voters and shake so many hands," said state Treasurer Jonathan Miller, one of seven candidates in the May 22 Democratic primary election for governor. "You certainly have a captive audience.
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Former Democratic Gov. Paul Patton of Pikeville, while standing in line for breakfast, shook the various candidates' hands and proclaimed that this year's race for governor, though just over two weeks away, "has just begun."
"It started late.
I think this will be a late-deciding race, and that's probably long enough to get the real issues out there," he said.
Patton said the annual breakfast is an ideal place to campaign. It started as a private affair in 1936 with then-Gov.
A.B. "Happy" Chandler before becoming a public spectacle about 30 years ago with thousands in attendance.
"I was always here all the time. I like to see the candidates out here. You will never find a better opportunity to meet people in such a festive mood," Patton said.
"They're not in a hurry. They're waiting here in this line. They've got time to say hello to you.
I've always respected candidates who get out here and meet this crowd."
"It adds to the atmosphere," he added.
Besides Miller, this year's candidates at the breakfast included Lexington attorney Gatewood Galbraith, another Democratic candidate for governor; state Rep.
Lonnie Napier, a Lancaster Republican running for state treasurer; Melinda Wheeler, former director of the state Administrative Office of the Courts who also is in the GOP primary for treasurer; and Bob Bullock, a Frankfort businessman who is in the Democratic primary election for attorney general.
Wheeler and Bullock started campaigning at the breakfast at 6:30 a.m.
and said they planned to stay until the last voter left.
"It's mostly shaking hands, but I've had a few people who asked me some substantive questions," Bullock said. "But you don't get much time to answer.
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The candidate who got the most attention at yesterday's breakfast was the governor himself. Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher, and his wife, Glenna, left the Governor's Mansion about 7:30 a.
m. and walked to the breakfast tent.
At his first breakfast as the state's chief executive, in 2004, Fletcher mingled only briefly with the crowd.
This year it took him nearly 40 minutes to make it to the tent as he chatted with the visitors.
Terry and Connie Jackson of Glasgow had brought their grandsons, A.J.
, 11, and Trace, 7, to meet the governor, who stopped and visited with the family.
"Those boys have been talking about this for a long time," said their aunt, Sandy Harston of Frankfort.
Fletcher told reporters that a dinner Friday night with about 1,000 guests raised about $241,000 for renovating the Governor's Mansion.
Also during the breakfast, Glenna Fletcher revealed that the couple planned to meet yesterday afternoon with Queen Elizabeth, who is in Kentucky for the Derby, and to give her a music box from Louisville Stoneware that plays My Old Kentucky Home.
Asked how his race for governor was coming down the stretch, Fletcher said, "As we turn the corner into the last two furlongs, things are looking pretty good."
He laughed when Bobby Rorer, a Democratic stalwart from Lawrenceburg wearing a Steve Beshear for governor sticker, hugged him and whispered into his ear, "Here's one Democrat who still loves you.
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Reach Jack Brammer at (859) 231-1302 or 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 1302.
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