Huffington Magazine Issue 61 | Page 49

KENTUCKY’S KING subject themselves to questionable, or downright illicit, practices that may accompany the current electoral process.” McConnell called for dramatic reductions in campaign contribution limits and labeled the idea of a city-run campaign trust fund a “progressive” proposal. In 1977, he decided to challenge Democrat Todd Hollenbach Sr. for Jefferson County judge-executive, a job that exercises administrative authority over the Louisville suburbs and some city functions like welfare. The job had oversight over the most populous county in the state. Hollenbach confesses today that he did not consider McConnell a threat. “First time I ever saw him, I must admit I was amused,” he said. “I just didn’t take him seriously. I can remember thinking to myself, ‘I bet he carried a briefcase in the third grade.’ I thought he was just a comical-looking kind of character. ... He had no personality. He was very uncomfortable in a crowd.” But McConnell had a message that was independent enough to gain traction. There were roads that required fixing, cronyism that needed stamping out and a jail HUFFINGTON 08.11.13 whose locks could be broken with a toothbrush. “He was kind of a good-government guy,” remembers Meme Sweets Runyon, who worked as McConnell’s campaign coordinator and later became his press secretary. “He thought the government