BY PATRICK CROWLEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
VANCEBURG, Ky. -- The big blue bus was easy to spot as it moved east along the AA Highway, a road rimmed in towering hills of trees awash in the bright red, orange, yellow and auburn leaves of the season.
Behind the vehicle's tinted windows were the two Northern Kentucky Republicans vying for seats in Congress, U.S. Rep. Jim Bunning of Southgate and State Sen. Gex "Jay" Williams of Verona.
They hit the road Monday to begin the final week of campaigning for the Nov. 3 election in races that are too tight to call.
"We're taking our message directly to the people of Kentucky," Mr. Bunning said while working a crowd in Vanceburg, the first stop on the campaign tour.
Races neck-and-neck
Mr. Bunning, a six-term House member, is running for the Senate against Lexington Democrat Scotty Baesler. Mr. Williams is trying to win Mr. Bunning's 4th District seat against Boone County Democrat Ken Lucas.
With polls showing both races statistical dead heats, all four candidates will be crisscrossing the state and the 4th District over the next seven days.
Mr. Williams rode the bus only for the first two stops in Vanceburg and Ashland, which are both in the 4th District.
Mr. Bunning, however, has 36 stops planned across the state during his five-day trip, scheduled to end Fridayin Lexington. Mr. Williams and Mr. Bunning began their bus trip Monday after an 8 a.m. rally in Fort Thomas' Tower Park. About 100 GOP candidates, elected officials and supporters gave a send-off to the Republicans who will sit atop the ticket next week on Northern Kentucky election ballots.
"I wanted to be here to wish Jim Bunning and Gex Williams luck, and to tell them while they're out on the road, we're back here working in our races," said Terry Rasche of Woodlawn, candidate for Campbell County commissioner.
From Mr. Bunning's native Campbell County, the bus headed east about 90 miles to Lewis County. While Mr. Bunning and other Republicans have carried the district over the past decade, Lewis is the only one of the district's 22 counties where Republicans outnumber Democrats.
Get-out-the-vote drive
With turnout expected to be under 50 percent, the candidates and their supporters implored Republicans to get the party's faithful to the polls next Tuesday.
"You came out and supported me when I ran in Lewis County," former Republican Gov. Louie Nunn told a crowd of about 50 GOP supporters in Vanceburg, the Lewis County seat. "You've got to be ready to get the vote out next week for Jim Bunning and Gex Williams."
A number of other prominent Kentucky Republicans are scheduled to appear with Mr. Bunning this week, including U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell; U.S. Reps. Hal Rogers, Ed Whitfield and Ron Lewis; and Larry Forgy, the party's 1995 gubernatorial candidate.
Mr. Bunning told the gathering how he has voted to protect money for Social Security and Medicare while his opponent has failed to pass any bills during his six years in Congress.
Mr. Bunning also said Baesler campaign ads claiming Mr. Bunning favors a 30 percent flat tax are false.
"I've said I'm for a flatter, fairer tax," Mr. Bunning said. "To say I'm for a 30 percent flat tax is a farce. He made it up."
Rick Switzer, 40, of Lewis County, who is disabled and receives money from Social Security, said he came out to see Mr. Bunning and Mr. Williams "because I'm a Republican and that's the way I'm voting next week.
"Jim Bunning will defend and protect Social Security," said Mr. Switzer, a Bunning campaign sticker on his shirt. "That's what we need in Washington."
In stops in Ashland and Louisville, Mr. Baesler's theme for the day was health insurance and criticism of health maintenance organizations.
He told Ashland Rotarians he would continue to support a Democratic version of a "patient bill of rights" that would make it easier to sue an insurer that denied coverage.
In Louisville, he appeared with Karen Johnson, a cervical cancer patient who last week won a $13 million judgment against Humana Inc. for its refusal to pay for a hysterectomy.
Mr. Baesler also took a jab at the Bunning campaign: "The biggest distortion is Jim Bunning sitting on the hay bale" -- a jab at a folksy campaign commercial Mr. Bunning filmed on a farm.
"The only tobacco farmer in Washington is me," Mr. Baesler said.
