As you may or may not know, former President Bill Clinton was in Kentucky recently stumping for Alison Lundergan Grimes (D. KY) in her bid to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R. KY):
http://www.kentucky.com/...
As former President Bill Clinton stepped to the podium following Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes' emphatic introduction, a coal miner whispered something to him.
The miner's advice, the former president told the audience packed inside the Hal Rogers Center, was "don't forget to remind people she's much prettier than Mitch McConnell is."
"You got that right!" a man in the audience shouted.
That was one of many contrasts Clinton tried to draw between McConnell, the U.S. Senate minority leader, and Grimes, the Democrat hoping to unseat him, as he traveled to a part of the state that has seen coal jobs evaporate and laid much of the blame on President Barack Obama.
"I am a Clinton Democrat," Grimes shouted to the approving audience.
For Grimes to win in Eastern Kentucky, she'll need voters to believe that declaration and not that she is "Obama's Kentucky candidate," as McConnell and his allies have asserted repeatedly.
Grimes has endeavored from the start of her campaign to prove herself as a pro-coal Democrat.
On Wednesday, as Grimes and Clinton spoke, members of the United Mine Workers of America sat onstage behind them, serving as flesh-and-blood proof that Grimes had won the group's endorsement. - Lexington Herald-Leader, 8/6/14
Of course Clinton also took his shots at McConnell:
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
Participants of the $200-minimum fundraiser could buy throwback campaign buttons on their way in, including one declaring "Bring back peace, prosperity & Bill."
Many in Kentucky wished they could bring back the former president, who won the state twice and remains a popular figure more than a decade after leaving office. Instead Grimes has had to run a campaign distancing herself from President Barack Obama, particularly his policies on coal that have angered many longtime Democrats in eastern Kentucky.
"Not one time did Alison's opponent even give her the dignity of mentioning her name. He kept acting like she was a clone of the White House," Clinton told a crowd of about 750 people, referencing Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell's recent speech at the Fancy Farm picnic in western Kentucky. "That man thinks that Kentucky has stopped teaching arithmetic. The White House changes every four years. It will change in two years, and this is a six-year job. He's actually hoping everybody will just check their brain at the door and forget you are hiring somebody to do something for the next six years that he has not done for the last 30." - CBS News, 8/6/14
Clinton's appearance is very beneficial for Grimes' campaign:
http://wfpl.org/...
UMWA member Jimmy "Possum" Evans of Hopkins County is a 10-year retiree who intends to vote for Grimes this fall. He said those watching the Senate race should know when it comes to Kentucky, coal industry officials and miners don't always share the same views.
"The mine operators want you to work for nothing so they can pad their pockets is what it amounts to," he said. "She sounds like she’s pro-coal, at least I feel like she is. I was pleased with what she said."
Union leaders are calling the UMWA endorsement of Grimes over the weekend a "game-changer" in the Senate race. The union is also planning to launch an ad campaign throughout Eastern Kentucky.
Critics of the nod point out the UMWA has less than 1,000 active workers in its ranks. Those previous endorsements haven't helped other Democratic candidates seeking to run for Senate in the past.
And a hole in Grimes' well-orchestrated event Wednesday were a noticeable number of UMWA members who said they were bussed to the campaign event from West Virginia.
Then there’s President Obama, who Evans indicated is more disliked among union members than McConnell in many instances. In 2012, UMWA declined to endorse the president's re-election.
McConnell ties Grimes to the current president and national Democrats at every opportunity, arguing their environmental policies are responsible for the massive job losses.
That's one of the reasons Grimes is deploying Clinton, who won Kentucky in both of his presidential runs.
During his speech, Clinton spoke of the need for more bipartisan work in Congress to advocate for rural Americans. He also reminded audience members of his work as a lawyer on black lung disease cases before giving them some free advice.
"Now I'll give you a gift," said Clinton. "Do the smart thing and send Alison to the Senate."
Unlike Obama's visceral unpopularity—one UMWA member threatened to physically harm the president—Clinton is beloved in the region.
"I really think President Clinton does understand rural people better," said Evans' wife, Alberta. "He's always been there for Kentucky, and Kentucky's been for him." - WFPL News 89.3 FM, 8/7/14
Things are starting to get pretty heated in this race:
http://www.politico.com/...
Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes used her speech at Kentucky’s Fancy Farm picnic Saturday to argue that “Mitch McConnell doesn’t care.”
Her face reddened as she yelled into the microphone over boosters and booers, claiming at various points that the Republican senator doesn’t care about working people, seniors, women, students, unions and coal miners.
“One of us represents the Washington establishment; one of us represents Kentucky,” Grimes said. “One of us represents the past; one of us represents the future.”
The minority leader used his speech to nationalize the race and paint Grimes as a tool of national Democrats.
“Barack Obama only needs one thing to keep his grip on power. He needs to keep the U.S. Senate,” McConnell said. “There’s only one way to change America in 2014. That’s to change the Senate and make me the leader of a new majority — to take America in a different direction.”
In the most expensive and highest-profile Senate race of the year, not to mention the tightest in the polls, both sides tried Saturday to frame the race going into the final three months before Election Day.
Fancy Farm, an annual picnic in rural western Kentucky, has been held on the grounds of St. Jerome Catholic Church every year since 1880. Thousands of people come for barbecue and politicking, especially in an election year. - Politico, 8/2/14
Oh, and this doofus tried to insult Grimes with rhymes:
http://www.rawstory.com/...
Daily Show host Jon Stewart teed off on Kentucky senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul on Wednesday, mocking their performances during last weekend’s “Fancy Farm” picnic and rally, when both Republicans tried to needle McConnell’s Democratic Party challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes.
“There once was a man named Rand Paul. His limerick skills sucked my b*lls,” Stewart said. “While his coif was so curly, his prose made me surly. B*lls b*lls b*lls b*lls b*lls.”
Stewart’s barb came in response to Paul’s own attempt at reciting a limerick during the event.
“There once was a woman from Kentucky, who thought in politics she’d be lucky,” Paul told the audience. “So she flew to L.A. for a Hollywood bash, she came home in a flash with buckets of cash.”
While Paul was swinging and missing, Stewart observed, McConnell seemed content to stand by impassively as Lundergan Grimes disparagingly compared him to the TV show Mad Men and accused him of giving up.
“He doesn’t even move,” Stewart said, laughing at McConnell’s stoic expression. “Not a single twitch, nothing. Either Mitch McConnell has, through a years-long practice of controlled breathing and zen meditation achieved a deep, metabolism-slowing trance state, or that man is dead inside. Brother, she is ripping you to shreds. Blink.” - Raw Story, 8/7/14
Oh apparently, McConnell kind of, sort of insulted Paul recently by comparing Paul to Henry Clay:
http://www.newrepublic.com/...
Since both senators represent Kentucky, it’s safe to assume McConnell meant to imply that Paul is the most credible Kentuckian candidate for president since Clay, and that he doesn’t include turncoats like Lincoln—who was born in Kentucky but emigrated to Barack Obama’s Illinois—as true Kentuckians like Paul, who originally hails from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
I see a few people treating this as evidence that an old rift between the two has healed, or that they’re willing to set aside past rivalries for the sake of party unity. McConnell supported Paul’s opponent in the 2010 Kentucky Senate primary, and Paul frequently joins a rump of GOP senators who at times make McConnell’s job incredibly difficult.
But if you know the history between these two, you can just as easily construe it as a backhanded compliment. Clay is McConnell’s hero. Admiration for Clay is perhaps the only thing McConnell has in common with Nancy Pelosi.
Rand Paul shares no such affinity. Clay was the “Great Compromiser.” On that abstract score at least, Paul hails from the tradition of John C. Calhoun, not of Henry Clay, even though ironically he now sits at Clay's (and McConnell's) old desk in the Senate. Paul broadsided Clay in his maiden Senate floor speech in February 2011—an unexpected heresy from a freshman politician from Kentucky, which was probably actually directed at McConnell (who keeps a portrait of Clay in his Senate office) rather than at random history buffs who might’ve been watching C-SPAN at the time. It was the legislative equivalent of a subtweet. In the middle of Paul’s speech, McConnell walked off the Senate floor. - New Republic, 8/4/14
Probably not the smartest idea to insult the guy the Tea Party loves, especially since you would need him to win:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/...
Although the five-term Republican ended up winning a a tough primary challenge from businessman Matt Bevin handily, the race was one of the most vicious and ugly this cycle, with Bevin’s campaign badly damaged in a cockfighting scandal. And while some disaffected conservatives have backed McConnell in November, Bevin has still not endorsed him, and many of the Tea Party groups that supported the businessman are following suit. As a result, in a recent poll, nearly 20% of self-identified Republicans didn't support McConnell
Scott Hofstra, spokesman for the United Kentucky Tea Party, said he isn’t backing McConnell and “taking the lesser of the two evils approach.” Many conservatives, Hofstra predicted, either will leave the box on the ballot for U.S. Senate empty or will vote for David Patterson, the libertarian candidate. The senator has alienated many Tea Partiers and has yet to reach out to bridge the gap, Hofstra said. The divide was opened further, he added, by McConnell’s open support for Thad Cochran in the Mississippi Senate runoff and McConnell’s association with pro-Cochran ads that many conservatives assailed as race-baiting. “If there were some people on the fence after what happened in Kentucky, the Mississippi incident really put them over the edge,” Hofstra said. Still, he noted that Tea Party dissatisfaction with McConnell wasn’t winning Grimes their votes. “I haven’t talked to anybody who would vote her.”
Andrew Schachtner, president of the Louisville Tea Party and a former Bevin campaign staffer, sounded somewhat more restrained than Hofstra in his comments to The Daily Beast. He said his group “was focusing on state and local issues” instead of the Senate race. In particular, he said, the Louisville Tea Party was prioritizing a local state house candidate to help Republicans gain control of the Kentucky House of Representatives. As for the McConnell-Grimes race, Schachtner said he had decided whom he would vote for but declined to disclose that candidate’s identity.
It’s not just Grimes who stands to benefit from Tea Party doubts about McConnell. Patterson, a policeman from the central Kentucky town of Harrodsburg, is seeking to get on the ballot as the Libertarian candidate. A recent poll put Patterson at 7 percent in the race and poised to be a spoiler. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Patterson said he felt confident that his team would get the necessary signatures and noted that he was already preparing in advance for any legal challenge. - The Daily Beast, 8/4/14
But who needs them when McConnell has his wife to come and help him:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
The newest ad from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's campaign illustrates why his most valuable surrogate is his wife, former labor secretary Elaine Chao.
In it, Chao responds to a recent commercial from McConnell's opponent, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes (D). She offers a serious, direct-to-camera rebuttal to Grimes's argument — a central one in the Democrat's campaign — that McConnell (R-Ky.) has cast votes that have hurt women.
The ad with Chao says McConnell co-sponsored the original Violence Against Women Act and rejects the notion that he has failed to take women's interests into consideration with his votes.
Grimes is running hard against McConnell on women's issues. Her argument is essentially this: McConnell is out of touch with Kentucky women. Just look at his rhetoric and his record.
Her argument — to women from a woman — holds the potential to spur Democratic and centrist women to come out to the polls and vote for her in the fall in what's shaping up as a very close race. That has placed a burden on McConnell to come up with an effective counterargument.
He's turning to Chao to make that argument — to women from a woman, just like Grimes. Not many male politicians have a spouse or significant other who is willing and able to play that role — let alone one as well known as Chao. - Washington Post, 8/5/14
We'll see how that goes. We can beat McConnell we just have to make sure our base comes out to the polls. Click here to donate and get involved with Grimes' campaign:
http://alisonforkentucky.com/