Thank you Sam Youngman of the Kentucky Herald-Leader. His article about the upcoming governor's race between Jack Conway and Tea Party loon Matt Bevin sums up how I feel about this appalling political race. It is a perfect microcosm of what progressives have to put up with when the state "Democratic" Party acts like they get their political strategy from a consultant inside the Beltway.
To be honest, I wasn't aware of this little factoid:
There were many surprising numbers in last year's U.S. Senate election, ending with the margin of victory (15.5 points).
But perhaps no other number was as shocking or concerning for Democrats than 12,000. That's roughly the number of Louisville Democrats who went into voting booths and pulled the lever for U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth and then left without voting for Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes.
That number, pointed out by Kentucky writer James Higdon, presented a harsh new reality for Kentucky Democrats — there was only so much the liberal base was willing to put up with from its own party.
I knew that most Democrats who couldn't stomach Lundergan-Grimes chickenshit campaign sat at home, but I didn't know that some who did show up either didn't vote for her or wrote in another candidate:
Capillo is a liberal activist, one of the protesters dragged from a Frankfort committee room by Kentucky State Police this year after lawmakers refused to consider a proposal to restore voting rights to felons who have completed their sentences.
Capillo, who lives in Lexington, went into the voting booth last year and voted for a down-ballot Democrat — congressional candidate Elisabeth Jensen — and then wrote in the name of a candidate for U.S. Senate instead of voting for Grimes.
A double-whammy of insults — a Grimes ad about "illegal immigrants" and Grimes' refusal to say if she voted for Obama — in the closing days of the race were too much for Capillo and others.
And Conway is behaving in a similar way as the pathetic Lundergan-Grimes. However, as the article points out, there are major differences. And the big one is that Conway is at least defending the Medicaid expansion in KY. In fact, he has been playing some offense on the issue.
Yes, I am unhappy with Conway, but I will still vote for him because the alternative is just too awful to even contemplate. But my point is that Kentucky politicians can go too far in trying to be a Republican while running with the so called Democratic label. Conway appears to have avoided that this time.