Tea party offers governor candidate

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July 30, 2010

By RONNIE ELLIS CNHI The Glasgow Daily Times Fri Jul 30, 2010, 11:13 AM CDT

FRANKFORT — Sounding themes that resonate with followers of the tea party, a Louisville businessman and advocate of charter schools said Thursday he will seek next year’s Republican Party nomination for governor.

Phil Moffett, 49, who operates CCS Partners, a telecommunications company that services cell phones and personal communication devices, will head the ticket. His running mate is state Rep. Mike Harmon, 47, R-Junction City. David Adams who managed U.S. Senate Republican candidate Rand Paul’s primary campaign will manage their campaign. They made their announcement Thursday on WHAS-TV in Louisville. They met with reporters after appearing on the Leland Conway radio show in Lexington on Thursday afternoon.

Moffett began the press conference by saying the presidential administrations of Republican George W. Bush and Democrat incumbent Barack Obama “have significantly accelerated the size of government and government debt.” That theme runs through the tea party and Paul’s campaign, but Moffett said he and Harmon will have to earn the support of both the tea party movement and Paul.

During the interview with Conway and later with reporters, both men several times said government “needs to be restrained.” Moffett promised “to protect the sovereignty of the commonwealth” and test and fight federal laws that he thinks fail a constitutional test – again a frequent theme of the tea party and Paul.

Adams said the slate will file a letter of intent with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance perhaps as early as Friday – something slates must do before raising money. Moffett said he will “seed the campaign” with $50,000 of his own money, but Adams said the slate intends “to fund the race with broad grassroots support.”

The two are the first publicly announced Republican slate for the 2011 gubernatorial race.

Incumbent Democrat Steve Beshear and Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson are raising money on the Democratic side, while Gatewood Galbraith and Dea Riley have formed an Independent slate. Perennial candidate Otis Hensley has also announced he’ll run for a third time as a Democrat.

But Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, is openly talking about running for governor and wants Republican Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer to run as his lieutenant governor. Lexington state Rep. Bill Farmer and Erlanger state Rep. Adam Koenig have said they are considering forming a slate in the Republican primary as well.

The race will be Moffett’s first. He has achieved some recognition through KIDS First, an organization he helped form which provides scholarships for low-income children to attend private schools. He’s also served as a board member for the conservative Bowling Green-based think tank, Bluegrass Institute. He has a degree in finance from the University of Kentucky.

Moffett said he will propose a “single-rate consumer sales tax on all goods and services” and eliminate corporate and individual income taxes. That, Moffett said, will make Kentucky “the most competitive state in the region and possibly in the entire country.” He said public schools are failing and that more control and accountability should be returned to local districts and local administrators.

“Effective teachers and new teachers are not paid enough,” Moffett said. “But ineffective teachers need to try a new profession.” He said he could pay for higher teacher salaries by efficiencies in education and elimination of unneeded, non-teaching personnel in the system. He and Harmon, a mortgage loan officer, said the state faces $7 billion in debt and a $30 billion liability in its employee pension plans. Moffett said the solution is to move to a defined contribution plan rather than defined benefit plan for new employees. He said he would take a look at the “inviolable contract” with current employees and retirees after the courts have ruled on a couple of cases where states are seeking to revise previous promises to state employee systems not to cut benefits.

Ronnie Ellis writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com. Follow CNHI News Service stories on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cnhifrankfort.

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