I would agree there, Anti.
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I agree in part. It is late in the game and she canāt win on usual political faults in KY in my mind. McConnell won in 2008 by 53% to 47%. To make up approx. 100K votes she has to win those around the margin with new voters, women, minorities and those affected by the economy.
So by all means sidestep the box McConnell wishes to put her in. However run to those issues voters are interested in without providing fodder that McConnell is right about the association with Obama.
Got me very concerned, too. I donāt feel good about this one.
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"āMitch McConnell wants you to think Iām Barack Obama,ā she says. āā¦ Iām not Barack Obama. I disagree with him on guns, coal and the EPA.ā
āAnd Mitch,ā āthatās not how you hold a gun.ā
Iāve never written a commercial, but Iāve written ad copy and this packs a lot of signal with zero noise. This one āsingsā we used to say.
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I could be wrong, but it looks like Grimes is trapshooting, not āskeet-shootingā as the headline has it.
Maybe some day America will get to such a place that voters would care that a candidate for public office is featured in an ad in which she appears to be engaged in a competitive chess match, and winning. In the mean time, how a candidate holds a gun will serve as a proxy for their mental acuity to sort through complex social, economic, and international issues.
Did she hit any of the skeet???
This was a very hard chore from the start, I agree. Assuming the 47% who voted against McConnell in 2008 holds this time around, her wining margin wonāt come from those die hearts. The only viable chance is to run at her strengths not at her fears, especially when the polls show a slippage towards the 53/47 split. Appreciate your hard facts.
If the President wasnāt black, āthat Negroā would apparently be replaced by āthat white guyā etc.
see, e.g., when Bill Clinton was President.
āOur first black presidentā, remember?
While I understand your pragmatism, it really is a bridge too far to call Allison Grimes a Liberal. Sheās a Clinton Democrat to be sure. There actually are Liberals and Progressives in Kentucky but you typically wonāt find them outside of the golden triangle. And Ad campaigns like this one can do as much damage as they do good.
Allison has been groomed by her father for this one moment her entire life; unfortunately I suspect the political calculus is a little off here. The very worst thing about this race in Kentucky has been the unfortunate narrative that for Grimes to win the base must be sacrificed. This has been most damaging in state Democratic citadels such as Louisville and Lexington; creating a very real enthusiasm gap. Yard signs and pandering will not win this race. Roosevelt said āIt is permitted you in time of grave danger to walk with the devil until you have crossed the bridgeā, forgetting that Faustian deals have a way of turning out differently than you expected.
At the end of the day this is really about a power play in the Kentucky political landscape, unseating the most powerful republican in the state- and as Kentuckians have demonstrated routinely in the past, we actually care very little about your national political agenda. Between the lite choice and the real thing, no one is fooled by the substitute.
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I think sheās just recognizing the political reality that Obama is extraordinarily unpopular in KY. This is one of two states where voters openly admitted in polling that they wouldnāt vote for a black candidate no matter where the person stood on the issues. She and her people arenāt stupid. They know what theyāre up against, and taking every opportunity to they can to disagree with the president is just good politics.
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Hope she wins, but what must it be like to be a sentient being living in a state where to get electedā with all the problems we face todayā you have to show first that you know how t shoot skeet and second, you support the maintenance of a type of mineral extraction that dooms the workers who extract the mineral (coal) to lives of poverty and illness. I guess you lose in Kentucky by promising to work for better education and health.
yeah ā I recall that bit.
Seriously, and Iāll move past this immediate context here, I repeatedly hear people say that the opponents make it because heās black. I also recall Clinton, who was labeled a murderer and so forth, and not because he was the "first black President.ā If Hillary Clinton won we would hear it is because sheās a woman.
Republicans will find something to latch on to whomever wins.
I wrote that she was a liberal by Kentucky standards
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The on RCP is 47/42 McConnell. On TPMās Polltracker, itās 47/42 McConnell as well. As a KYian, I very much disagree that she can run this race and win without acknowledging that Obama is deeply unpopular in KY and without highlighting areas of disagreement.
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I hear you. 2008 was a close race for Mitch as he shed 12 points over the race in 2002. I remember him saying he felt shot at, after that race. I was hoping and it still may come to pass, with his antics in the Senate and Rand Paulās politics.
Except that Bill Clinton won KY twice, and in very large part because of Jerry Lundergan, Allisonās father.
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i think, though, that the perception of democratic presidents as per se illegitimate is not that old. And some of the traction itās gotten has had to do with the antecedents of the most recent two. Which reflects badly on both the country and the punditocracy.
Up next, Mitch challenges Grimes to a beer drinking/pissing contest.
I would like to add the caveat that Allison truly is a wonderful person, and really has no problems standing on her own merits. She takes the time to meet people, and in a very Clinton way you get the sense she is really listening to you. I supported her in the SoS race in hopes she would go on to other offices to build a little more standing on her own, as a firewall to her fatherās political career behind the scenes. I genuinely want her to be successful.
However the McConnell machine is vicious, and I worry that the foundation for this contest could have been built a little more fully and deeply.
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