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The Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate race, between attorney general Jack Conway and Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, should really be over with.
Mongiardo has already been exposed on audiotape saying plenty of unkind words about his boss, Gov. Steve Beshear, one of the few prominent Democrats who's been willing to go to bat for him. The YouTube clips, however, have been downplayed in political circles because no one knows who produced them, and there's a suspicion that they're heavily edited.
He's also getting trounced on the fundraising circuit by Conway, and now the Conway campaign is out with some startling revelations about Mongiardo's personal finances. (see below)
As our own Al Mayo points out, both sides are making plenty of mistakes. But I suspect the only reason that Mongiardo is even competitive at this point is that he's got one thing going for him in the eyes of rural voters -- he's not from Louisville.
But at least Conway is now on the attack, as you can tell by the tone of the campaign's latest charge against Mongiardo. And the campaign has the official documents to back up the claims. No word from the Mongiardo camp in response.
From the Conway campaign:
November 18, 2009 – Dr. Daniel Mongiardo is double dipping, ripping off Kentucky taxpayers and proving once again he can't be trusted. Mongiardo falsely claimed only $10,000 of income as a surgeon in all of 2008 and 62 days in 2009 on his federal disclosure and $0 on this state disclosure for 2008. Meanwhile, during the same time frame, Dr. Dan billed the Kentucky Medicaid Program more than $679,142. In fact, since 2006, he's billed the Kentucky Medicaid program $2.4 million. Keep in mind, this doesn't account for operations Mongiardo performs on people with private insurance.
Dr. Dan's campaign mouthpiece, Kim Geveden, told the Courier-Journal that Dr. Dan loses money practicing medicine, even though Mongiardo has said publicly that he performs surgery and works as a physician two days a week in Hazard.
Dr. Dan and his spin machine have a lot of explaining to do – what is he hiding? Is Dr. Dan hiding his income, cheating on his taxes, overbilling the Kentucky Medicaid Program, lying on his federal and state disclosures or all of the above?
As for collecting his Lieutenant Governor's salary while he's performing surgeries and billing taxpayers through the Kentucky Medicaid Program, in essence performing operations while "operating" on Kentucky taxpayers. In these trying budget times, when there's talk of laying off state employees and cutting services for the elderly and disabled, Mongiardo should return his Lieutenant Governor's salary to the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
Kentucky voters and taxpayers deserve straight answers from Dan Mongiardo.
Once again, Dr. Dan proves Kentucky voters and taxpayers can't trust him anymore than Steve Beshear can.
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