The first words Louisville voters hear Jim King speak in Jim King's first television ad of the 2010 mayoral campaign?
"Have I made mistakes? Yes."
And, King campaign manager Jonathan Hurst says King is, in fact, referring to the legal questions surrounding cash gifts King made to his daughter, Katie King, that she in turn used to finance her judicial campaign.
By choosing his own commercial to raise the issue, King hopes to keep it under control and nullify it. Though King did not tell me what his internal polling has revealed about voters attitudes concerning the Katie King flap, the controversy is apparently consequential enough to deal with right out of the gate.
Even by dealing with it early, it is unlikely King will be able to control it, as evidenced in this exchange during my interview of rival Democrat Greg Fischer:
Fischer: "People are telling me they want a mayor they can trust, so character matters. And they are also wanting someone who has experience running a business."
WHAS11: Is there someone who doesn't have integrity or they can't trust that we should know about?
Fischer: Well, your viewers can answer that question. The integrity issue is one and the experience issue is a separate matter as well.
The closest candidates to Fischer in the WHAS11/Courier-Journal Bluegrass Poll are attorney and Metro Councilman David Tandy, who does not have experience running a business, and Jim King, who has extensive experience running his own CPA firm and bank. Under Fischer's formula, it appears that King is in his crosshairs on the character issue.
King is expected to release a poll this week that will show him in the lead, instead of third place as the WHAS11/Courier-Journal poll showed. Hurst says King has "considerably moved in the polls," and that the internal poll pegs undecideds in the Democratic primary between 50% and 60%, nearly double the WHAS11 poll.
The ad buy for the first commercial starts on local morning news, Wednesday at 5am, and continues through March 30, Hurst revealed. King is spending $130,000 on this first burst of ads. As King has loaned his campaign more than $750,000, expect to see lots of the ad. Hurst says the ad buy "saturates the market." The commercial is mainly a King biography, how he rose from humble beginnings, benefited from the charity of a St. Xavier High School priest, and how he has spent his life repaying that debt.
At the same time, Hurst says the campaign will focus on grass roots, town hall meetings, another mail piece, and "several visuals throughout the city."
And Hurst says the campaign is proceeding according to plan, even going as far to say that he is "stoked" over King's 12% showing in the WHAS11 poll.
