Buddy, can you spare a dime's worth?

I generally agree with Dennis Hetzel’s impressions (below) of how the Kentucky gubernatorial candidates fared at Tuesday’s AARP forum in Frankfort, but I’d add this:

In 1968, when George Wallace said there isn’t “a dime’s worth of difference” between the two major parties, he could have been talking about this race. At least, that’s the way it seemed to me Tuesday. The sponsoring group made sure the candidates discussed health care and seniors’ issues, but even so, there was either a surprising sameness in their positions -- or a lack of clear party identification. You almost could have put all eight of them (right; empty seat in the middle should have been filled by Gov. Ernie Fletcher) in a box, shook them up, and slapped R or D labels on them at random.

Who was the candidate who beat the drums for early childhood intervention, saying the lack of good education is the root cause of a wide range of social and economic ills? A Republican, and the one who identifies himself as the most fiscally conservative, Billy Harper. Who was the one candidate who came out advocating tort reform? A Democrat – Steve Henry. Sure, he’s a doctor, but so are half the other folks running for statewide office, or so it seems. Even in the closest thing to a defining issue in this race – whether to support expanded gambling or “enhanced gaming,” or the latest euphemism du jour – it’s hard to see a real party-line difference. Only Democrat Steve Beshear seems to advocate it unequivocally.

Kentucky politicos are a different breed. Party fervor seems to be even less about real ideology than in other states. It’s more like a generations-long feud between two neighboring families who have long since forgotten what the fight was about.

The race’s quick-witted gadfly, Gatewood Galbraith, says the parties have turned their rivalry into a “blood sport,” and that the other candidates are like a tube of Pringles – “not a ruffle or ridge among them.” Galbraith’s a Democrat. I think.