Five myths about Fancy Farm

The 130th annual Fancy Farm political picnic held in that small Graves County community on the first Saturday in August is now in the books. Great theatre. It was fun and worthwhile. But much of the aura that surrounds it is mythical. My myth-count is five.

1. Somebody in the press always mentions that it kicks off the fall campaigns in Kentucky. That’s one of several exaggerations about the World’s Largest Picnic. If it kicks off the fall political season, why does the county seat of Mayfield not allow any candidate to put up a yard sign in the city limits until Sept. 3 — the Friday before Labor Day?

2. The image of the Fancy Farm Picnic is tightly bound to nostalgic old-timey political speech-making. But there are no Lincoln-Douglas style debates — no even a thoughtful speech. Quality plays second fiddle to theatre. The speakers are rushed through like cattle at a stockyard sale, with two to seven minutes each to put on a show. The politicians are expected to go on stage and act a little crazy — say some bad things they might not say in a normal setting. That can be fun and memorable, and puts a demand on creativity, which Sen. Mitch McConnell has been a master of over the years. But not this year. His scripted message was excellent, but his delivery was mild and perfunctory. All in all, Fancy Farm is a good church fund-raiser, but not much on inspirational speech-making.

3. The Fancy Farm Picnic is a media event, more than a political event. A handful of print and broadcast journalists from Paducah, Lexington and Louisville show up every year — about 15, maybe 20 — and file stories on Fridays and Saturdays that give the event its celebrity aura. The picnic is a creature of the media, more specifically, a creature of the Lexington and Louisville media. Even so, more than half of Kentucky’s 23 daily newspapers printed no stories — zilch — during the weekend of the event this year.

4. How many visitors stand in the August sun, around the Fancy Farm pavilion — or sit under the pavilion’s overhead shelter — to listen to the politicians? The media, unintentionally but dependably, repeat year after year an exaggerated count. For instance, this year a Paducah Sun story prior to the picnic estimated an overall attendance of 15,000, of which 2,000 would listen to the speakers; in a post-picnic story in the same paper, the same writer had 10,000 attending and 3,000 listening. Associated Press used the overall 10,000-attendance figure this year in its report on the event, but gave no estimate of the number who paid attention to the politicians.

I’ve been to more than 20 Fancy Farm picnics, beginning in 1973, and I’ve never seen anything close to 3,000 people listening to the speakers. This year, the crowd was the largest in many years. About 1,200 people stood or circulated around the pavilion, sat in lawn chairs or on table benches; another 300 or so were inside the pavilion, under its shelter.

The 10,000 or 15,000 number, the count of total visitors, has to be an accumulative number of people coming and going on Friday and Saturday. On Saturday afternoon during the political speeches, 5,000 would be a stretch, even this year with attendance up.

5. My conclusion is a bit milder. The Fancy Farm Picnic is a social, political and career opportunity. It’s a place to meet politicos and candidates, to spend time with professional colleagues and friends, and to network. One can make a political statement by simply showing up — or by not showing up. It’s all of those. But hardly to the degree it’s held out to be. Sure, a lot of junkies attend and count the years like notches on a gunslinger’s pistol in the days of the Old West. Elected officials and wannabes mingle with each other, and with donors and voters; and some end up in a news story. Fancy Farm does offer networking benefits. However, very few state legislators attend: maybe 15 or 20. Representatives of the media outnumber legislators. But one can easily have brief, meaningful conversations with 30 or 40 people — and be seen by others. But going to Fancy Farm for the networking? For me, marginal.

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