Conway, Bevin bare knuckles in second public gubernatorial forum at Kentucky Farm Bureau

cn|2 Pure Politics ^ | 7/23/2015 | Kevin Wheatley

[Republican Wildcat]

Gubernatorial candidates Matt Bevin and Jack Conway traded barbs and accused one another of spreading mistruths during Thursday’s “Measure the Candidates” forum hosted by the Kentucky Farm Bureau.

In their second public appearance as their parties’ nominees, the pair touched on topics such as tax exemptions, tort reform, health care and rural infrastructure, with Conway continually seeking to present contradictory stances from his opponent while Bevin repeatedly urged the audience in the KFB boardroom and watching online to visit his website and learn about his views.

And when their own words weren’t enough, they reached for quotations from others to illustrate their points.

“Groucho Marx once asked, ‘Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?’” Bevin said after Conway said the latter’s Blueprint for a Better Kentucky suggested eliminating all tax exemptions. (Marx’s brother, Chico Marx, actually delivered the quoted line in the 1933 film “Duck Soup.”)

“And I feel in some measures that’s what I’m dealing with as I listen to my alter ego over here telling you what I say when it’s not actually the case.”

Bevin’s plan suggests a significant reduction in such exemptions.

Bevin went on to say that while a number of tax credits, such as mortgage exemptions, “make sense,” a number of others don’t because of fiscal constraints on the state.

“We’re broke,” Bevin said. “We are the sixth-least solvent state in America. We have the second-worst credit rating of any state in America. You talk about fiscal management sir, these are exactly the reasons why I’m running for governor.”

After Bevin said Conway and Kentucky Democrats misrepresented his views on the federal farm bill, Conway quoted former President Ronald Reagan in his 1980 debate with then-president Jimmy Carter for a second time in the nearly two-hour KFB forum.