FANCY FARM, Ky. — Jim Gray walked to the lectern on stage, leaned in to the microphone, and began to speak. Kentucky’s openly gay Senate candidate was making history.

He would say later the boos were so loud he could barely hear his own voice.

No more than 10 yards in front of the Democrat, a teeming mass of yelling, chanting Republicans were trying to intimidate him. A few hundred of them had crammed underneath this pavilion, no bigger than half a football field, to stay dry from the storm soaking the surrounding fairgrounds in this tiny western Kentucky town.

Gray, of course, welcomed this.

Supporters of Republican Sen. Rand Paul wave signs and cheer at the annual Fancy Farm Picnic in Fancy Farm, Kentucky, on Saturday, Aug. 6, 2016. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

The St. Jerome Fancy Farm Picnic is an annual showcase for Kentucky’s top politicians to give (they hope) a funny, sharp-elbowed speech at the other party’s expense. While they speak, hundreds of loud-mouthed partisans are encouraged to yell and scream as loudly as they can — as if the American political id was caged in a small pavilion two hours from a major airport.