The May 19 GOP primary has turned incredibly ugly especially in the past few days. On Monday night, a woman who said she used to date state Agriculture Commissioner James Comer back in college publicly
accused him of physically and mentally abusing her and taking her to get an abortion. Comer is denying everything and is arguing that he's the
victim of a smear campaign.
Comer says he's planning to sue the Courier-Journal for printing the story, and went after primary rival Hal Heiner, calling him the "Christian Laettner" of Kentucky politics. In the Bluegrass State, comparing someone to the Duke player who scored the tournament winning shot against Kentucky in 1992 is the ultimate insult. In fact, it's basically the sports version of Godwin's Law.
Comer's also airing his first real negative ad of the contest, though he's unsurprisingly not focusing on the recent story. His spot instead stars a coal miner, who says he doesn't think that Heiner will stand up to Barack Obama to protect state coal jobs. The commercial never goes into any detail whatsoever about why Heiner will wilt in the face of the Obama Administration while Comer will stand firm.
Heiner's allies are also launching a negative ad, but they're so far ignoring Comer. Instead, the Bluegrass Action Fund targets the third candidate, tea partying businessman Matt Bevin. The narrator goes after Bevin for claiming to attend MIT when he didn't really. The attack is a relic from Bevin's 2014 race against Sen. Mitch McConnell. The rest of the spot goes after Bevin for taking a bailout when his family company got into trouble, another leftover from last cycle.