[charlie22]

I attended the Paul vs Conway debate at NKU last night. Both of them had some bright moments and some not so bright moments. Conway comes across like one would expect of an attorny: an almost plastic figurine. When he showed some emotion, if you will, it was almost condescending. Paul at times was almost flippant and disrespectful towards Conway.

I went into the debate favoring Paul and came out that way. Nothing Conway said gave me any reason to believe that he won't be another professional politician interested in being in DC for a long time. Those types scare me because their focus can become more oriented on getting re-elected than doing what is best.

Conway on multiple occasions said he was best for Kentucky and Paul was only interested in cutting taxes and eliminating programs that helped Kentuckians. Paul never said it, but I really hoping that he'd respond to all Conway's mentions of "he's for Kentucky" with a simple: "Sure you are for Kentucky just like Pelosi is for California, Reid is for Nevada and Byrd was for WV". In my opinion, we desperately now need Senators and Congressmen/women who are willing to take the heat with their constitutients to do the best thing for the country. If this country can improve, the State of Kentucky will improve. All ships rise on an incoming tide. Continuing to increase the deficit and raise taxes so there is more money to bring home as pork to Kentucky will be a short term help for Kentucky, but it will hurt this country and thus hurt Kentucky down the road when our economy is a shell and we are on the path of Greece. That's not helping Kentucky; that selling out the future of our kids and grandkids to make promises to folks today in order to get elected.

Heck, I'd be willing to pay more taxes and pay for part of my Medicare in the future (yes Jack, even pay $2,000), if I became convinced that it was done so to dramatically reduce the deficit and that the ridiculous federal spending was controlled. I'm not willing to do it however, if that just means more pork for the members of Congress to take home to the districts to help them get re-elected. I'll gladly make sacrifices and pay more as long as there is fiscal retraint shown.

Conway kept saying that Paul was going to balance the budget on the backs of our senior citizens. I guess his approach is to be able to provide programs and pork that will be placed on the backs of our children and grandchildren. Paul needs to emphasize that at some point we will have to pay the piper and ask those senior citizens whether they'd rather feel the pain or pass the pain to their children and grandchildren in the future.

There was no doubt that Conway was the slicker, more accomplished public speaker of the two. We elected one smooth talking lawyer to the White House a couple of years ago. I hope Kentuckians are smart enough not to repeat that in this election, but we'll see soon enough.