Column by Richard Becker

What is Daniel Mongiardo afraid of?

This question has been on my mind for the past week, and I’ll tell you why. Last week, Mongiardo’s official Kentucky Lt. Gov. press office issued a media advisory announcing two healthcare-related events featuring Dr. Mongiardo.

At the first, in London, Ky., Mongiardo campaign goons, apparently having been tipped off, kicked out two staffers for Jack Conway, Mongiardo’s primary opponent. These two staffers, part of Conway’s opposition research operation, were tasked simply with recording Mongiardo’s ostensibly public remarks — remember, the media advisory was issued by his tax-payer funded, public office. Of course, for this they were removed from the premises.

I was able to attend the second event at the Holiday Inn in Lexington with a friend of mine, blogger Joe Sonka of “Barefoot and Progressive.”

We entered the convention center and had scarcely taken in the scene — conference attendees walking around with name tags, pharmaceutical representatives cornering the important people present — before a woman, Angela Underwood, approached me and Joe and angrily told us to immediately leave the building.

Underwood identified herself as a representative of the Kentucky Society of Health System Pharmacists, which was sponsoring the event and Dr. Mongiardo’s speech.

Following an awkward conversation in which Joe playfully brought down her tone a notch, she left us again with a command to leave the building.

When we pointed out to her we had received an official media advisory, she told us that no media would be allowed to enter without paying a steep registration fee. It all seemed curious to us, but rather than risk arrest, we begrudgingly took our leave.

The Conway trackers didn’t fare much better. Within minutes, they too were left standing in the parking lot with Joe and I. We had all observed something curious, to be sure.

Both inside and outside the building we had each noticed Mongiardo campaign staffers milling about. Yet the media advisory for the event had come from Mongiardo’s official, tax-payer funded office.

When challenged by the Conway campaign on this very matter, Mongiardo spokesperson Kim Geveden, dismissed it offhandedly. According to an article in the Louisville Courier-Journal, Geveden “denied claims by [Conway representative Mark] Riddle that Mongiardo campaign workers were allowed in,” further alleging that “the only Mongiardo campaign worker who attended … was a video tracker.” This is patently false. I know this because I’m not blind.

Geveden can deny all he wants, but the fact of the matter is there were campaign staffers present at these putatively official events.

I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know if this subtle blurring of the lines between official and political activities is necessarily illegal, but it certainly smells bad. To add fuel to the fire, the Mongiardo campaign Web site promoted these events.

Regardless of the legality, this simply confirms a character trait many have long suspected: Daniel Mongiardo has far less interest in governing than he has in self-promotion. He takes advantage of the opportunity even to use tax-payer dollars for self-promotion.

Of course, in our political culture, such behavior means Mongiardo is a good politician. But a good politician does not always equal a good public servant.

I’d like to suggest in the interest of Dr. Mongiardo’s credibility that in the future, if he issues a media advisory, he not dispatch lackeys to keep out the press.

Of course, when you don’t want the public to know how close you are to the very industries (read: pharmaceuticals, health insurance companies, coal companies) that have resulted in our Commonwealth and our country being in the sorry state they are, you’re probably best advised to keep out the press.

But then again, what do I know?