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