The outsider

SELF-MADE businessman, army veteran, father of nine: on paper Matt Bevin, the Republican candidate in the election for governor of Kentucky on November 3rd, looks ideal. In the flesh, too, he has strengths, telling rousing stories about his impoverished childhood (albeit in New Hampshire) where, at the age of six, he sold packets of seeds for a quarter to pay for summer camp. In this cantankerous age, and in his pitch, Mr Bevin’s main asset is what he has not done: held political office. By contrast Jack Conway, his Democratic opponent, has served two terms as the state’s attorney-general and—as one insider observes of his sometimes turgid remarks—may know too much about government. Where Mr Bevin lists the firms he has revitalised, Mr Conway tallies his legislative successes. At a Republican pep talk in the town of Berea on October 26th, a supporter pertinently asked Mr Bevin: “Can I put your bumper-ticker across from the [Donald]Trump sticker on my truck?”

Yet quick and witty as he is on the stump, Mr Bevin can be less personable with adversaries and critics, including some in his party. That he hasn’t held office is not for want of trying: he rashly challenged Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, in a bitter if lopsided primary fight last year. Mr Bevin describes the campaign against him then as “$20m of blowtorch to the face”, much of which is now being recycled by the Democrats. In remarks he says were misconstrued, he seemed to slight Rand Paul, Kentucky’s other senator (whom Mr Conway challenged in 2010), by praising Ben Carson, a rival for the Republican presidential nomination. He has seemed inconsistent on other issues, too, “flipp[ing] around like a bass on the end of a fishing line”, Mr Conway told a union audience in Louisville on October 27th. Mr Bevin denies reports that he shouted at a receptionist at the Democrats’ HQ, but his hostility to Mr Conway can seem intemperate. In their final televised debate, Mr Conway praised Mr Bevin’s adoption of four Ethiopian children; Mr Bevin couldn’t think of anything nice to say about Mr Conway.