ASHLAND —
With Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting Mitt Romney expected to easily win Kentucky over President Barack Obama, this state is expected to be largely ignored by both the candidates and the national media during this fall’s presidential campaign.
That is except for the night of Oct. 11 when the only debate between the two major party nominess for vice president will be at Centre College in Danville. For 90 minutes that night the two major party vice presidential nominees will discuss both foreign and domestic topics.
The debate will be divided into nine segments of approximately 10 minutes each. The moderator — who has yet to be named but must be approved by both candidates — will ask an opening question and each candidate will then have two minutes to respond. The rest of the time in the segment will be used for discussion.
The non-profit Commission on Presidential Debates is sponsoring the event. It will mark the second time the candidates for vice president have debated at Centre, and its return to Danville is a tribute to the excellent job both the college and the city did in hosting the 2000 vice presidential debate between Republican Dick Cheney and Democrat Joe Lieberman.
There also will be three presidential debates in October, and they certainly will draw a much larger listening and viewing audience than the single vice presidential debate. That’s as it should be. Most people vote for president, not vice president. Typically, the impact of the vice presidential candidates on the results of the presidential race is minimal. But with polls indicating this presidential race is extremely close, any impact the vice presidential dabate will have on the race for president is likely to be important. This year’s vice presidential debate in Centre could be just as important as the 2000 debate in Danville. After all, the 2000 presidential race was the closest in history, with Al Gore winning the popular vote but losing the electoral vote to George W. Bush because of a U.S. Supreme Counrt ruling awarding Florida’s electoral votes to Bush.
Mitt Romney has yet to name his running mate, and there is speculation that Vice Predident Joe Biden may not be President Obama’s running mate for his second term. However, regardless of who the candidates are for vice president, their debate in Danville could be the only national attention Kentucky gets during this presidential campaign.
Editorials
One night only
Vice presidential debate may be only attention state gets
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Funding Rupp
The use of $2.5 million in coal severance tax revenue to help pay for renovations at Rupp Arena in Lexington has drawn the ire of some county leaders in the eastern Kentucky coalfields.
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Modest increase
Full-time students at Ashland Community and Technical College will be paying an average of $60 more in tuition this fall under a modest 2.86 percent increase approved Friday by the Kentucky Community and Technical College System Board of Regents.
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The next step
The people — or at least those who took the time to vote in Tuesday’s special election — have spoken. The issue of alcohol sales in Grayson has ben settled for at least the next three years.
In an outcome that surprised many, Grayson voters rather convincingly for the legal sale of alcohol in the city for the first time since 1937. With 511 voters answering in the affirmative to the question, “Are you in favor of alcoholic beverages in Grayson, Ky.?” as opposed to 393 voting “no,” the results were not even close. The measure passed in all seven of the city’s precincts. -
Top Father
In the Spade family, the vote was unanimous. Both 12-year-old Emma Spade, who will be a seventh-grader at Verity Middle School this fall, and Emma’s 11-year-old brother Will, who attends Hagar Elementary, both thought so highly of their dad — Ponderosa Elementary School principal Matt Spade — that they both wrote essays nominating him for the Ashland Breakfast Kiwanis Club’s annual Father of the Year award, presented annually on the Tuesday before Father’s Day.
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An unselfish act
Even before the start of the recent Boyd County Health Department’s Bicycle Rodeo, Gavin Eckard said that if he won one of the two bicycle given away at the event, he would give his new bike to someone who needed it more than he did.
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Crop still banned
When their colleagues in the U.S. Senate rejected their efforts to legalize industrial hemp production as part of the Senate farm bill, Kentucky’s two Republican senators — Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and freshman Rand Paul — reacted to the Senate refusal to include their hemp proposal in the bill by saying they would oppose the comprehensive farm bill.
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It's not the breed
Lorie Akers wants the Ashland City Commissioner to adopt an ordinance banning pit bulls in the city. Since she claimed her Chihuahua Paco was attacked and killed by a neighbor’s pit bull while the little dog was chained in the back yard, it is understandable that Akers is worried that her children and other pets could be endangered by pit bulls.
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A necessary evil
The shifting of the tax burden that began when the Ashland Board of City Commissioners first adopted the payroll tax in the 1990s continues as the mayor and four elected commissioners prepare to increase the payroll tax from 1.5 to 2 percent while at the same time decreasing property taxes.
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No time to read
The complaints of two leading legislators about a provision added to a complex pension reform bill approved by the 3013 Kentucky General Assembly points hat can happen when legislative leaders wait until the final days or even hour of a legislative session to bring major pieces of legislation. In so doing, they force legislators to vote on bills they have not even had time to read.
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To the polls
On Tuesday, residents of Grayson will discover if attitudes about the sale of alcohol in the city have changed in the past 42 years. It is an important question, and we encourage registered voters to take the time to go to the polls Tuesday.
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