People sang loudly in the small-town church Steve Beshear attended as a child. They had to. Their tiny brick sanctuary had no organ or piano.
It was there that Beshear, the son of the preacher, said he learned just how important it is for people to let their voices be heard.
Half a century later, the Democrat is out front in the Kentucky governor's race, promising to draw on his experiences at Dawson Springs Primitive Baptist Church if elected Nov. 6.
Beshear's promises to bring strong moral values to state government are similar to those that helped Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher win the office four years ago. Beshear, 63, has made his religious upbringing a centerpiece of his campaign, running television ads showing him in front of the church in western Kentucky.
"The vast majority of people in this state have a common set of values and have grown up in religious homes just like I did," Beshear told The Associated Press. "I don't find that either political party has a corner on faith."
But his greatest opposition comes from church leaders themselves who oppose his proposal for legalizing casinos in the Bible Belt state.
Beshear favors changing the state's constitution to allow about 10 casinos to open at horse tracks and in a handful of towns along the Kentucky line. They could generate $500 million a year in additional revenue, Beshear said, for a state with some of the nation's poorest counties.
Before such a change could be made, voters would have to approve in a ballot referendum.
Beshear is attempting a comeback after a nearly 10-year hiatus from politics. Since 1974, he has been a state lawmaker, attorney general and lieutenant governor, a position he used as a springboard for a failed 1987 run for governor. He also ran unsuccessfully against Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell in 1996.
Recent media polls show Beshear ahead of Fletcher, who spent much of his term battling accusations that he directed the hiring of political allies for jobs protected by the state's merit system. A grand jury indicted him on misdemeanor charges, which were later dismissed in a negotiated deal with prosecutors after a judge said he could not be tried while in office.
But the grand jury later issued its findings in the case, saying Fletcher _ the state's first GOP governor in more than 30 years _ had approved a "widespread and coordinated plan" to skirt state hiring laws.
The Fletcher campaign has levied its own ethics attacks on Beshear, trying to blame him for the demise of Kentucky Central Life Insurance Co. in a bankruptcy case. Independent attorneys who reviewed the case 12 years ago were critical of Beshear's law firm, Stites & Harbison, saying it should have withdrawn to avoid a conflict of interest. The firm also represented a bank that held securities for a real estate loan tied to Kentucky Central.
The Fletcher campaign has also tried to paint the challenger as a liberal who is out of touch with average Kentuckians. They have been using a legal opinion Beshear wrote as attorney general, advising schools to take the Ten Commandments off classroom walls.
While Beshear was attorney general, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Kentucky law that required the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms. Justices ruled the law was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.
"As attorney general, it was my job to advise the school boards around the state as to what the Supreme Court said, and I did it," Beshear said.
On the campaign trail, Beshear has no trouble justifying his support for casinos, saying Kentucky residents view them as entertainment and can easily cross into neighboring states to spend their gambling dollars.
The Rev. John Dunaway, a retired Southern Baptist pastor who has known Beshear for more than 25 years, now volunteers on his campaign. A former president of the Kentucky Baptist Convention, Dunaway said he supports Beshear's actions on the Ten Commandments but prefers Kentucky not have casinos.
But Dunaway agrees with Beshear about Kentucky losing out to its neighbors on gambling revenue.
"The gambling is already taking place," Dunaway said.
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On the Net:
Beshear campaign: http://www.stevebeshear.com