But August was the real meltdown month for Bunning. At an annual Kentucky political event called Fancy Farm, Bunning was captured on videotape stalking off from a TV reporter after a Mongiardo supporter waved a campaign sign in view of the camera. The reporter gaped in surprise, her microphone still extended, as Bunning disappeared into the crowd.

A videotape provided to Salon by the Mongiardo campaign shows Bunning at another campaign event reading slowly from written remarks before quickly turning the stage over to Kentucky's senior senator, Mitch McConnell. McConnell, a Republican, did the heavy lifting of telling the crowd why Bunning should be reelected.

Then Bunning's security detail became a campaign issue when the Paducah Sun, citing local police sources, said in August that the senator was concerned about the possibility of an al-Qaida attack. Bunning warned ominously in an interview with a Paducah television station: "There may be strangers among us." When pressed, the Bunning campaign said it had requested extra security for Bunning upon the advice of the Senate Sergeant at Arms Office. It turned out, though, that the sergeant at arms had simply suggested that senators in general remain alert. There had been no specific threat against Bunning.

After the Kentucky Fraternal Order of Police endorsed him in August, Mongiardo used the occasion to poke fun at Bunning's large security detail, ribbing him for voting against extra police funding while requesting extra protection for himself. "Someone should ask Senator Bunning what is more likely: [that] Al-Qaida is waiting for him at the Quilters Museum in Paducah or that another Kentucky school child will be approached by a drug dealer?" Mongiardo said, according to the Associated Press.

Also in August, Bunning got into a testy exchange with a longtime member of the Rotary Club of Paducah about military force readiness. Chick Ward, a Republican and a 27-year veteran of the Navy, challenged Bunning's assertion that U.S. forces were not stretched too thin with the deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bunning, apparently unused to such challenges, got red-faced and bristled. The club later asked Ward to resign, saying he had embarrassed the senator, according to the Paducah Sun and the Rotary Club's newsletter.

As newspaper editorials drew attention to Bunning's gaffes and strange behavior, the Republican began releasing a barrage of negative attacks on Mongiardo -- which seem to have backfired. In one ad, Bunning shows a luxury home and airplane that he implies belong to Mongiardo, whom the ad ridicules as a "Medicaid Millionaire" who gamed the federal healthcare program for the indigent. Problem is, the home and airplane didn't belong to the Democrat. And the ad neglected to mention that Mongiardo worked as a doctor in one of the poorest areas of Kentucky, where Medicaid is prevalent, and his billings were for more than a decade's worth of treating patients. Mongiardo deftly turned the attack back on Bunning, saying he was proud to have never turned away a patient just because he or she wasn't wealthy.

All this has translated into momentum for Bunning's younger and more energetic challenger. Sensing new opportunity, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee last week gave the Mongiardo campaign a much-needed infusion of cash. The amount was described as in the "tens of thousands" of dollars, but it was less than the $466,000 that federal rules allow the national party to pump into a Kentucky Senate race, a committee spokeswoman told reporters.

Meantime, a new Survey USA poll conducted Oct. 6-8 showed that Bunning's once commanding lead has been cut in half, to 11 points. The Mongiardo campaign's private polling shows the race even closer, to an eight-point difference. Then on Saturday came the news that Bunning would not appear with Mongiardo at the Lexington debate.

WKYT news director Ogle told me that the Bunning campaign had phoned the station on Saturday saying the senator would be tied up in Washington all week and unable to travel back to Kentucky for Monday's 2:30 p.m. debate taping. (The "tied up in Washington" explanation turned out to be a lie: The Senate's last recorded vote of the week took place at 12:30 p.m. on Monday. There are no more recorded votes for the week, the Senate Republican cloakroom confirmed.)

Negotiating through Ogle, the Mongiardo campaign offered to reschedule the debate. Bunning said no. Mongiardo offered to fly to Washington to accommodate the senator. Bunning said no. Then, when Bunning insisted on appearing via satellite from the RNC headquarters, Mongiardo asked him to allow a neutral observer from the Kentucky news media to be present to ensure that Bunning didn't receive assistance with his answers. Bunning said no.

"I've worked in this business for 25 years, and I've never run into this kind of situation, so locked in stone," Ogle said. "They [the Bunning campaign] say it's got to be at 2:30 p.m. Monday. And that's it."

The debate was taped Monday and will air Wednesday evening, but only in Lexington and in Bowling Green and Hazard, where WKYT has sister stations; the rest of Kentucky will have to read about it in newspapers.

This incident will surely dog Bunning in the last three weeks of the campaign. In his closing and opening statements, the senator's eyes appeared to be scanning text, prompting reporters to ask in the post-debate news conference whether he was using a teleprompter. Bunning declined to answer, saying only that he has stuck to the rules, apparently referring to the original agreement that he himself violated by appearing from Washington. That agreement said the candidates could use "notes" during the debate.

Kentucky's Democrats are unlikely to let the issue lie. "He's sure using every flimsy excuse to keep away from Kentucky voters," said Garmer, the state Democratic Party chairman. Does he think Bunning is suffering from an undisclosed medical condition? "Well, it is certainly the obvious question to ask," Garmer said.

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