Deep Within His Heart, Dan Mongiardo Knows Jack "Pretty Boy Floyd" Conway Is An Empty Suit, But He Tries to Be Polite About It. I'm LMAO!

Mongiardo may not endorse Conway
By Joseph Gerth

Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo said Wednesday that Attorney General Jack Conway would make a better U.S. senator than Republican Rand Paul -- but still may not get his endorsement.

In an interview, Mongiardo said Conway hasn't shown that he's engaged with people in rural areas and hasn't expressed the bold ideas that he, Mongiardo, believes are needed to move the state and the nation forward.

"What I'd like to see out of Jack is him being a leader, more independent and less handled," Mongiardo said in discussing a possible endorsement. "...If he's going to be the U.S. senator, he needs to be a leader and he needs to start listening to people in Eastern Kentucky, Western Kentucky, rural counties as well as Louisville, Lexington and Northern Kentucky."

He added: "I'd like to see out of Jack some ideas other than, you know, what is poll-tested."

He said he isn't yet comfortable in making an endorsement and doesn't know if he'll get to that point.

The Conway campaign disputed Mongiardo's remarks, saying that the attorney general has received support throughout the state and that Mongiardo and Conway agreed on numerous policy positions during the Democratic primary campaign.

"Daniel's analysis is incorrect," said Allison Haley, Conway's spokeswoman. "We respect Daniel and we hope he joins with us in this united effort to defeat Rand Paul."

With Paul holding a lead in public polls done since the May 18 primaries, most political experts believe that Conway needs Mongiardo's public backing -- which so far he has declined to offer -- to have any chance to win the general election.

The Democratic primary was a brutal one, with both sides raising ethical questions about each other and Conway portraying Mongiardo, a surgeon who has continued practicing medicine in Hazard, as a do-nothing public official.

Conway has said he has spoken with Mongiardo on several occasions since the election. But Mongiardo said those discussions have been brief -- a one-minute phone call the night of the primary in which Mongiardo conceded and another brief phone call the following week.

"There needs to be a lot of discussion but so far there's not been any attempt at discussion, it's been all about Nov. 2, and nothing else," Mongiardo said.

He said he believes the Democratic Party is "fractured" and that Conway and other Democratic leaders in the state need to work to heal it.

"There is a party of elites, the big names, and then there's the party of the rest of us, the grassroots," he said. "And unless we bring those two sides together, that's why we've lost in federal races, because there has been this separation through the years.

Democratic Party Chairman Dan Logsdon said Mongiardo is wrong.

"I couldn't disagree with those comments more strongly," said Logsdon, who officially takes the reins of the party Thursday morning. "It goes against everything I'm seeing when I talk to Democrats across the state."

Logsdon said Conway is working hard to talk with voters and unite the party, particularly in rural areas where Mongiardo beat him in the primary.

Haley noted that Conway has the support of numerous grassroots organizations, including the Young Democrats and several labor unions, and also has received the backing of former U.S. Sen. Wendell Ford.

"I would defy you to find people in Kentucky who think Wendell Ford is an elitist," she said.