Kentucky as bellwether for Bush's job policies

The Kentucky candidates are relatively close on the issues. Both want better roads and bridges. Both want to deflate ballooning healthcare costs. Both tout legalized gambling to pay for education. But they promote different drug-benefit plans: Chandler has proposed importing more pharmaceuticals from Canada.

Gauging just how the dynamic of the national economy will play out here is a difficult task. On the one hand, Chandler has clearly tapped into Democratic discontent with Bush, and how he does at the polls will depend in part on whether party stalwarts turn out to vote Tuesday.

Yet Bush is still more popular in Kentucky than in most of the nation. He won by 16 percentage points here in 2000, and his Saturday swing through Kentucky and Mississippi could sway both teetering Democrats and undecided voters. Further confusing Chandler's message is last week's report of a 7.2 percent GDP growth - the best since 1984. Indeed, in the past few weeks, Chandler has talked less about the frailty of the economy, more about "putting Kentucky first."

Standing amid the horse estates of central Kentucky, Tom Vinton Jr., has a pragmatic approach: "Ben [Chandler] is a tough monkey who wants to get things done right. But what I'm looking for is someone who will help me get my teeth fixed."

His friend Bud Atkins, leaning against his truck, says Chandler has done right by criticizing Bush's economic policies. Fletcher, he says, "is a liar just like Bush," who'd support trickle-down policies that he says have ruined thousands of jobs here.

Yet some segments of the economy are doing well here, diminishing the impact of Chandler's message.

In the Lewis valley, for instance, the biggest business is home construction, with five contractors headquartered here. Farming and logging still dominate. Even Democrats who "watch Wall Street, but don't play" note that the national economy today is, at best, a paradox.

Yet other voters think what's needed is not just economic change - but a change of party and vision in Frankfort. Steve Muse, Frank Miller Jr., and David Biddle are unloading tobacco leaves in one of the barns that dominate the hills near Blue Lick. Though the sign on their barn says "Chandler," they say they're voting for Fletcher.

They buy the idea that it's not national Republicans, but Kentucky Democrats, who failed to take advantage of a hot economy in the 1990s, and haven't stopped the slide of jobs.

As they pack the pungent leaf into tight bales, the men say only a Republican could make enough of an institutional change. It doesn't hurt that Fletcher seems to be behind tobacco farmers, supporting a federal buy-out plan.

At least, they say, a Republican governor would be a novelty. "I've never seen one elected in my lifetime," says Mr. Miller.

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