Todd P'Pool for Attorney General

I had an opportunity to meet the Republican nominee for Attorney General, Todd P'Pool, recently and was very impressed. To be sure, his name is a bit of a distraction. Turns out he is from an old Kentucky family named Petitpool and the name got hyphenated along the way.

It is high time that Kentucky put a prosecutor -- rather than a plaintiff's lawyer -- in the important office of Attorney General. P'Pool was elected County Attorney in Hopkins County in 2006 and reelected 2010. He was the first Republican elected to a county-wide office there since the Civil War; the county has 70 percent registered Democrats. Those electoral victories, plus his ability to tap former McConnell state director Larry Cox as campaign chair, suggests that P'Pool has considerable political acumen. That is why others who looked at running for A.G. backed off, in my opinion.

He strikes me as extremely bright and yet, unlike Jack Conway, P'Pool is very humble. He comes from a fourth generation coal family. As County Attorney (which collects child support from deadbeat dads), his staff showed him his mother's own child support case in that very office. He doesn't need to pretend to be a man of the people because that is who he is. That genuineness will contrast to Jack Conway, who like Hillary Clinton, attempts to vary his accent to suit his audience.

On the issues, P'Pool is a Federalist Society conservative. He will join the other Attorneys General to challenge the constitutionality of Obamacare. And he will prevent the Obama administration's undemocratic attempts to achieve Cap and Trade and other assaults on coal through regulation -- because they lacked the votes to impose such measures through statute.

P'Pool is the real deal. We are very fortunate to have him as our unopposed Republican candidate. Jack Conway probably doesn't realize it yet, but his days in office are quickly drawing to a close.