This week we got great news that Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has a higher negative rating than he has positive.
While only one man has officially announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination to take on Mitch, three others are seriously considering taking on the task. Former Attorney General Greg Stumbo was the first to launch an exploratory committee, Andrew Horne (draft, info) has been making preparations to do so too, and recently re-elected State Auditor Crit Luallen has been in talks with Chuck Schumer about running.
But apparently only one of these candidates matters, as Markos has already made up his mind to support Crit. At the end of kos' story on the new poll numbers he succinctly decrees:
On the web:
Draft Crit Luallen
Game. Set. Match. The primary may be 4 months away, and none of the top three candidates have even officially announced yet, but to hell with the democratic process. Our leader has spoken.
Now don't get me wrong, we all have our opinions, and Markos is certainly entitled to his. If he wants to endorse Luallen and editorialize about why she makes the best candidate, that's fine by me. But that's not the case here -- kos is bypassing all discussion and dictating to his readers who they should support. And not merely by decree, but via an Orwellian filtering of the news through his omission that there are two other very serious candidates for this race. While we all owe him a great deal of gratitude for bringing us this website, I don't think any of us as readers has bequeathed unto him the power decide for us who we should support. My gosh, what would happen if all of you were to sign the draft petitions and/or contribute to exploratory committees? We might actually, you know, get a netroots-endorsed candidate who is supported by the netroots! Mercy! Best to just let it come from the top - I mean that works so well with trickle-down economics, doesn't it?
And kos wasn't alone. Over at MyDD, Jonathan Singer made a nearly identical pronouncement.
RDemocrat touched on this subject yesterday in making the case for a Stumbo candidacy, but Matt Gunterman over at Ditch Mitch said it best:
This race is for Kentucky Democrats to decide. The one thing they did achieve (along with whoever is encouraging them to focus solely on Luallen at this stage) is to tick off a lot — and I mean a lot — of Kentucky progressive activists.
/snip
And by offering only implicit disrespect, these national bloggers are doing the budding Kentucky progressive movement no good.
After months and months of reading the front pagers rail against the way traditional media has declared one Presidential candidate "inevitable," our new people-powered (snort!) media has gone and done the exact same thing.
Disclaimer: I am a former staff member of Andrew Horne's 2006 campaign, and am creating one proposal for his 2008 website.