Jim Bunning

I grew up a fan of the Detroit Tigers (still am), so it's somewhat disturbing to see what's going on in the Kentucky Senate race involving former Tiger and Hall Of Fame pitcher, Jim Bunning, the incumbent.

Kentucky Race Turns As Whispers Grow Louder

Jim Bunning stepped up to a Rotary Club lectern here Thursday to notch a save in a campaign that was on no one's lineup card of competitive Senate races a few weeks ago. But thanks to growing speculation about his mental fitness, Kentucky now has one of the more interesting campaigns in the country.

"Reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated," the one-term Republican senator said. "I can still walk, talk and chew gum at the same time."

But can the Hall of Fame pitcher, who turns 73 Saturday, dispel talk in the state that he may not be up to the job? Such whispers have gotten louder in recent weeks as news media in Kentucky and beyond have pointed to a series of odd statements and actions by Bunning.

"Absurd," says Bunning's Kentucky colleague, Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell. "To suggest that the tall right-hander is somehow not up to a full nine innings or is losing his stuff, well, I'm here to tell you that the last thing you want to do would be to turn this job over to some lefty who's been playing in the minor leagues over in Frankfort."

That would be Democrat Daniel Mongiardo, 44, a two-term state legislator and surgeon from the state's coal mining region. The grandson of Italian immigrants who settled in Appalachia a century ago, he became the Democratic candidate after a scandal sidelined former governor Paul Patton.

Bunning caused a stir last spring when he told a GOP gathering that Mongiardo, who has dark hair and is olive-skinned, looked and dressed like one of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s sons. He apologized last week, but the damage was already done. Mongiardo accuses Bunning of a "negative smear campaign to make me look like a foreigner. I was born on the Fourth of July in Hazard, Kentucky. You can't get more American."

This summer Bunning, whose prickly personality often puts him at odds with reporters, told a Paducah TV station that he needed a large police detail to protect him from a possible al-Qaeda attack. "There may be strangers among us," he said.