Races Crowded On Many E. Ky. Ballots

CANDIDATES COME OUT OF THE WOODWORK TO SEEK ELECTIVE OFFICES

Mack Fultz, a two-term Letcher County magistrate, says he always has
opposition, but nothing close to the 15 candidates who want his job this year.

"Anybody can win with this many running," said Fultz, 55, a Thornton coal
miner. "One thing about it -- the voters can't complain. They've sure got
plenty to choose from."

Nearly a third of Kentucky's near-record 7,146 candidates live in 30
mountain counties, state records show.

In Letcher County, with a population of 25,000, the overall ballot contains
109 hopefuls -- nearly twice as many as Fayette County, with a
quarter-million people and second only to Jefferson County, which is 28
times bigger.

"There's more running than voting here," said Fultz, laughing.

What's going on in Letcher County -- a backlash against a stubborn
fiscal-court majority that Fultz says has somehow spawned a horde of
first-time candidates -- is not necessarily the reason for large ballots in
other mountain Kentucky counties, experts say.

Political consultant Dale Emmons says ballots often are glutted in rural
areas because private-sector jobs are rare.

Public office, with good pay and status, looms as an attractive
opportunity, he said.

"It looks easy if you grab this job, but it's not as easy as it looks,"
Emmons said.

But Danny Briscoe, a Louisville political consultant, says there's a more
basic reason some former judge-executives and sheriffs want their old jobs
back this year.

"Power is an aphrodisiac," Briscoe said. "Being county judge is like being
the governor of a small state. And being sheriff is like being the local
commandant. Both can be very powerful, lucrative jobs."

More than 2,100 of the county candidates statewide are, like Fultz, running
for magistrate, including 60 in Pike County and 58 in Letcher.

But the hottest races in Eastern Kentucky are for sheriff and county
judge-executive, political observers say, with some overlapping.

At least two former sheriffs whose civil rights have been restored after
convictions on federal drug charges -- Ray Clemons in Breathitt County and
Roger Benton in Morgan County -- are running again for the same office and
being taken seriously by opponents.

Both men contend they were set up by drug dealers who wanted them out of
office.

Increasingly, however, sheriff offices in the region are being sought, and
occupied by, retired state police officers.

"Obviously, if you're going to be in law enforcement, it helps to have a
law-enforcement background," said Denny Pace, a former state police
detective who retired at age 41 and now is jailer in Harlan County.

But the recent slayings of Pulaski County Sheriff Sam Catron and former
Harlan County Sheriff Paul Browning, both of whom apparently were killed
while campaigning, has changed this election, said Delzinna Belcher, a
former Harlan judge-executive who is seeking to recapture her old office
from incumbent Joe Grieshop.

"We're not in a day and time now when we can knock on any door, not knowing
who lives there and not knowing who's at home," Belcher said. "I don't go
anywhere anymore if I don't know the community."