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http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.htmlBut Mongiardo has proved an unexpectedly skillful campaigner, while Bunning has been behaving so bizarrely as to fuel speculation that he is suffering from some sort of undisclosed medical condition. He's stalked away from news interviews, likened the dark-complexioned Mongiardo to one of Saddam Hussein's sons, freaked-out Louisville civic leaders by stating falsely that they'd lost federal funding for a bridge, engaged in verbal fisticuffs with a Republican Navy veteran at a Rotary Club and requested extra security because, as he warned a Paduch television station: "There may be strangers among us." Bunning has declined to release his medical records, although he did offer up letters from his physicians describing his blood pressure (normal at 134/82) and his cholesterol level (a healthy 161).
Moreover, Bunning has virtually stopped taking questions in public and has instead limited himself to reading, briefly and woodenly, from short, prepared texts. He would agree to only one debate with Mongiardo. But he insisted that the debate be pre-recorded without an audience present and that his challenger promise not use video footage of Bunning's performance in any television ads.
Then, on Monday, Bunning balked at even that. He refused to show up in Kentucky for the debate, instead "appearing" via satellite from the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington. He also refused to allow a neutral third-party observer in the studio to monitor whether he was receiving assistance with his answers. On Tuesday, when I wrote in Salon about Bunning's maneuver, Kentucky's main talk-radio station, WHAS, went wild, interviewing me three times in a continuous loop of speculation about Bunning's health.
After the debate, Bunning campaign manager David Young admitted to reporters that Bunning had used a teleprompter in his opening and closing statements. The Mongiardo campaign accused the senator of violating rules that limited participants to the use of "notes," and the news director at WKYT-TV in Lexington, which hosted the debate, called the Bunning's sneaky conduct "despicable."
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