Warren/Butler Counties Senate Candidates, Incumbent Mike Reynolds And Challenger Mike Wilson Call Each Other Liberal. FUNNY, BOTH Are Conservatives!

Debate Night Thursday
Event sheds light on shared values
By ROBYN L. MINOR

An hourlong forum Thursday ended with both candidates for state Senate calling each other liberal.

The two candidates for the District 32 seat - current Democratic Senator Mike Reynolds and his Republican opponent Mike Wilson - espoused many of the same conservative values during the event at Bowling Green Junior High School.

Both are members of the National Rifle Association, with both receiving high ratings from the organization and Reynolds getting its endorsement. Both have a military service record: Reynolds as an officer in the Army and Wilson in the Marines.

Both have received endorsements from Right to Life and both favor previously proposed legislation that would require a woman to view the ultrasound of her unborn child before undergoing an abortion.

Both are against expanded gambling.

And both think that schools have no place in providing access to condoms or information about sex to children. Both said it’s a parent’s responsibility.

Both men favor raising the school dropout age to 18 and both opened the door for Kentucky to consider establishing charter schools - although Reynolds said not having them was not the overriding reason Kentucky failed to receive federal Race to the Top funds. The state’s score, even with charter schools, would not have been enough to pull it ahead of other applicants in the highly competitive process for millions of dollars.

Both men say they want to protect Kentucky coal while continuing to develop alternative energies, and both said they would vote for a bourbon sampling bill that failed to pass during the last special session.

“That really surprised me,” Reynolds said of the failure of the measure he voted for that would have allowed such sampling to take place at special events such as the World Equestrian Games.

Both men agree to a point with a proposal that would have lawmakers work for free during a special session that was required to reach a budget after one could not be agreed upon during a regular session. But Reynolds said current wage and hour laws would prevent such a move.

Both men said they would continue to work with local governments and chambers of commerce to attract industry to the area. But Reynolds said he thinks the state incentive program put in place during a special session is doing its job to attract and retain industries.

Wilson disagrees with that approach.

“Once the incentives are (repaid) they move elsewhere,” he said.

Wilson instead favors restructuring Kentucky’s tax system, which he says is unfair to business. He also thinks that making Kentucky a right-to-work state, where employees aren’t forced to join a union to work at a union company, would make a difference in recruiting.

But Reynolds, who has the support of labor unions, said right-to-work states often have higher unemployment rates.

“We have better skilled craftsmen and educated workers with the laws we have now,” he said.

The men differed on whether Sudafed should be sold only by prescription.

Reynolds said he favors the move because it would reduce the chances of the ingredient being used in the manufacture of methamphetamine. But Wilson said it would cause an undue burden on families who suffer from allergies. They would then have to pay for a doctor’s visit to get the prescription.

The drug’s sale now is already regulated by being behind the counter, requiring a signature and driver’s license and with limits on the amount that can be purchased.

As far as their leadership abilities, Reynolds touts his years of leading an Army unit before practicing law.

“I’ve always been in positions of managing and leading people,” Wilson said of his experience that, in addition to managing Christian Family Radio, has included managing a large auto insurance office in California.

When it came time to ask each other a question, Reynolds asked Wilson how he could manage a Christian radio station and run such “attack ads on me,” including cards that morph Reynolds’ picture and radio attack ads.

“Anything we’ve said - go to www.mikereynoldsunplugged.com and hear it in your own words,” Wilson said.

That website takes snippets of comments that Reynolds made at Western Kentucky University, one of which mentions his redneck constituency.

One of those “rednecks” was holding a sign reading “Rednecks for Reynolds,” but he declined to be interviewed.

Reynolds proudly announced that in the audience were Democrats for Reynolds, Republicans for Reynolds and Rednecks for Reynolds, with whom he posed for pictures.

In their closing statements, both men ended up calling each other liberals.

The forum was sponsored by WBKO, the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce and Insight Communications.

— For more information on the candidates, go to mikewilson2010.com or mikereynoldsforsenate.com.