AG CANDIDATES ALL PACK SOME BAGGAGE

Child Support Suit, Use of Drugs Cloud Campaigns

FRANKFORT -- Apparently you don't have to be a Boy Scout to run for
Kentucky's top law enforcement job.

The race for attorney general pits a state lawmaker being sued for
child support against a one-time judge twice disciplined on the bench
and an independent who says he is "anti-drug" yet regularly smokes
marijuana.

Some prosecutors consider it a less-than-ideal field.

"I have the same concerns that other citizens would have," said Allen
Trimble, commonwealth's attorney for Whitley and McCreary counties.
"We expect our attorneys general to kind of take the moral high plain.
If they fall from that, it kind of hurts them."

The Democrat in the race is Rep. Greg Stumbo, majority leader of the
Kentucky House who likes to talk about how he would fight drug crimes
if elected.

His Republican opponent, Jack Wood, insists on talking about something
else -- a lawsuit filed against Stumbo by a woman with whom he
fathered a child during an affair. The lawsuit seeks $43,000 in back
child support.

Wood pours it on when he gets Stumbo in front of an audience.

Last month, at a stump-speaking picnic in western Kentucky, some in
the audience taunted Stumbo with placards bearing slogans such as
"Greg, will you take a DNA test?" and "Greg are you my dad?"

When Wood got his turn at the microphone, he recounted his experience
pursuing child-support cases as an assistant prosecutor in Louisville.
Turning to Stumbo, Wood said: "Does that give you nightmares at night,
Greg?"

Stumbo, whose son was born in 1988, said he has made support payments
since 2002, when a DNA test confirmed he was the father. He said the
lawsuit should not be an issue, though the attorney general is
chairman of a state commission that oversees collection of child
support statewide.

While opponents raised the issue in the Democratic primary, Stumbo won
a three-way race with 36 percent of the vote. No independent polls
have been conducted for the general election, to be held Nov. 4.

A one-time district court judge in rural southern Kentucky, Wood twice
was disciplined for allegedly deceptive election advertising in the
early 1980s. He also feuded publicly with his court clerk and a former
law partner.

"If I had a record like Jack Wood, I'd be ashamed," Stumbo said.

Wood said Stumbo's flaws are worse: "If you take his dirt and throw it
on the wall, and you throw mine, and you take a pressure washer, his
stays up there and mine goes to the floor."

Gatewood Galbraith, the independent, has run three times for governor
and twice for Congress as a Democrat, Reform Party member or
independent. He first gained political attention by advocating
legalization of marijuana.

He now advocates marijuana only for medical use and claims to have a
marijuana prescription from a California doctor to ease asthma and
emphysema.