Rain can't keep 'em away from Governor's Derby Breakfast

By RONNIE ELLIS
CNHI News Service

FRANKFORT May 03, 2008 01:29 pm

— Umbrellas and ponchos outnumbered Derby hats. But in spite of the rain that depressed turnout by about half of what was expected, around 6,000 showed up Saturday morning for the annual Governor’s Derby Breakfast.

It was Gov. Steve Beshear’s first, but he clearly was enjoying it. It took him a full 15 minutes to make his way from the tent’s entrance to the makeshift stage where he addressed the crowd. People shook his hand, posed for photographs, and some even embraced and kissed him.

“I told him I love him,” said Wanda Wilson Loving, 84, of Mt. Sterling. “I worked my, uh, feet off for him. I walked and talked and did everything I could for him.”

Loving, a Democrat, said she’s supporting Hillary Clinton for president and she’s mildly upset with Rep. Ben Chandler for endorsing her opponent, Barack Obama.

“I’m mad at him,” she said, laughing. “But I still love him.”

Despite widespread disappointment in the recently concluded General Assembly session and what many see as Beshear’s uncertain handling of his gubernatorial power, Loving said she thinks Beshear is doing well. Even a young Republican agreed.

“I think Steve Beshear is very good and very refreshing for the commonwealth,” said Caroline Hall, a 17-year-old junior at Lafayette High School in Lexington. Hall wants to become a journalist and cover government and politics.

“She doesn’t have fangs that long,” joked former Gov. Paul Patton when he heard her tell reporters she wanted to become a journalist. He told Hall that journalism is an honorable profession, but he couldn’t resist again kidding reporters waiting to interview him.

“It’s a necessary evil,” he laughed.

Patton was besieged by well-wishers, several of them current and former state employees.

“We’re talking about the most important issue in Frankfort and that’s the dadgum pension fund,” Patton said, shaking hands with retired state employee Steve Pace. He posed for photographs, including with a young boy from Pike County where Patton lives.

When he saw Beshear, Patton said, “Now here’s a real governor. Governor, come meet this Pike Countian.”

Beshear embraced Patton and told him he appreciated Patton’s public support in a dispute with the Council on Postsecondary Education.

Patton said he’s attended Derby Breakfasts since Julian Carroll was governor in the mid-1970s. “I’m a connoisseur of country ham.”

Several volunteers for Clinton’s campaign waited at the entrance to the tent, handing out brochures and stickers. One was Bobby Rorer of Lawrenceburg.

“The momentum has turned around in this past week or so,” he said. “She’s going to win this thing. I just don’t trust that Obama.”

There weren’t as many Barack Obama supporters and volunteers and one young man who was offering Obama stickers with a Derby theme said his reception was “not that good.”

Nicole Barber, 27, a Democrat from Frankfort wore one inside the tent. She said Obama “has a good outlook for the future and new ideas.” She plans to vote for him in the primary, but said she’ll support Clinton over Republican John McCain if Clinton defeats Obama for the Democratic nomination. “They (Obama and Clinton) really have similar views on a lot of issues.”

Barber was attending her “15th or so” Derby Breakfast.

“It gives everybody a chance to come out and be equal, to sit down at the same table and see the governor,” Barber said about the event’s appeal.

But Estelle Sizemore of Estelle’s Handcrafted Jewelry of Richmond thought the weather kept the people she wanted to see away. For the 24th year, she was manning a vendor’s tent on Capitol Drive in front of the capitol – and business was slow for her jewelry ranging in price from $36 to $400.

“The sun would normally bring out the people with the money,” she said.

Beshear predicted the weather would improve by post time at Churchill Downs.

“You know, we’re starting off a little wet, but it’s going to dry off and the sun’s going to come out and we’re going to have a big time today,” Beshear told the crowd.

He was betting on two horses – Colonel John and Big Brown. His wife, Jane Beshear, said she was picking the filly, Eight Belles.

“This filly is running against the boys and she may just be a big enough girl to beat them all,” she said.

RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.

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