By Patrick Crowley
The Cincinnati Enquirer

BOONE COUNTY - David Hunsader pays attention to elections.

The retired engineer reads the mail he receives from candidates and listens to the claims they make in television ads.

But as he ponders the Nov. 4 gubernatorial election between Republican Ernie Fletcher and Democrat Ben Chandler, a single issue stokes his passion.

"Somebody's got to do something about that road," said Hunsader, 66, as he stood in the driveway of his home on Rose Petal Drive just outside of Florence. "It's a mess. It's too narrow, too crowded and there are too many accidents. Who's got the best plan to fix it? That's what I want to know."

The road is KY 237. The section that leads to his street is known as Pleasant Valley Road. Twenty years ago it was a country road that connected U.S. 42 and Camp Ernst Road. Today it is a suburban thoroughfare lined with handsome subdivisions.

"This area is growing so much, but the roads haven't kept pace," said Hunsader, who moves here 12 years ago from the Green Bay, Wisc., area. "It's what people talk about out here more than anything else in terms of what they want from politicians."

Not 20 minutes after Hunsader spoke to a reporter two cars collided where Camp Ernst meets Pleasant Valley, backing up rush-hour traffic for several miles in both directions.

Hunsader's comments typify what other Northern Kentucky voters are saying just about a week away from the governor's race. As the saying goes, all politics is local. Voters are focusing on how the Fletcher and Chandler platforms will affect their own lives.

Boone County, the largest GOP-controlled county in the state based on the number of registered Republicans, is Fletcher country. The black and gold campaign signs for Fletcher and his running mate - lawyer and former U.S. attorney Steve Pence - are as popular in Boone County yards as Halloween pumpkins.

Not surprisingly, Fletcher toured Boone County earlier this year with county judge-executive Gary Moore, also a Republican, and pledged to devote funds to fix roads, including KY 237.

Chandler has also made frequent trips to Northern Kentucky and said he, too, would work to bring more money for road and infrastructure improvements, including to replace the Interstate 75 Brent Spence Bridge.

But with the state facing a budget deficit of at least $400 million, neither has committed firm amounts to specific projects.

Jim Luck, 61, of Florence, is aware of the budget woes.

Seated in a wheelchair, the disabled Republican was pushing himself through Florence Mall last week with "my one good leg," he said. He lost much of the other one through an amputation caused by a workplace accident.

"Health care is in trouble in this country and in this state," said Luck, a retired machinist who also sold industrial products. "How are we going to keep paying for Medicaid and Medicare? How about prescription drugs? I pay a couple of hundred dollars a month now for prescriptions. The costs are just too high."

He's undecided on how he'll vote, but he believes legalized casino gambling in Kentucky would bring badly needed revenue.

"Kentucky is losing all that money to Indiana's casinos," he said. "We need to keep that money in Kentucky."

Both candidates have said the voters should decide the issue of gambling on the statewide ballot, though Chandler has been more supportive, saying money generated by gambling could be used to help fund education.

That claim worries Taylor Mill resident Debbie Augsback, 40 A registered nurse at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Edgewood and a soccer mom, Augsback thinks linking education funding to gambling is a fool's bet.

"We heard the same thing with the lottery, but we still don't have enough money for schools," Augsback said. "Gambling is no sure fix for anything."

Like so many Northern Kentucky Democrats, Augsback often votes Republican. But she is also undecided on the governor's race.

Augsback has seen the ads, but dismisses the claims blaring from her TV as "mud-slinging." She is surprised more campaign pieces have not landed in her mailbox. And she does not recall receiving many phone calls from campaigns trying to win her vote.

"They might be calling," she said. "But we're never here. We're always at soccer or running someplace else."

E-mail pcrowley@enquirer.com