Al Mayo: Knuckleheads On Parade

Congratulations to Progress Kentucky! This liberal politcal action group has managed to do for Mitch McConnell what no one else has ever done. They gave him the high moral ground. That is a remarkable accomplishment, considering he doesn’t even have a declared opponent in the 2014 Senate race. By calling McConnell’s wife out, they lurched into the public eye. In a series of Tweets, PK called Elaine Chao’s ancestry into question. When it comes to the high ground, they actually didn’t give it to him, but McConnell seized it when the opportunity arose. His first official ad is Elaine Chao defending her lineage, and scolding the doofusses at PK for a tweet that offhandedly accused her family in China of helping cause U.S. unemployment. This is what was tweeted.

“This woman has the ear of @McConnellPress – she’s his #wife,” the group Kentucky Progress tweeted on Feb. 14. “May explain why your job moved to #China!”

Chao, of course, is the former Secretary Of Labor and has really never taken an active role in any previous McConnell campaigns. The new ad has Chao sincerely facing the camera and offering a staunch defense of McConnell and her family, which is exactly what I would do if I were in her shoes.

I get why they did this. McConnell is known as a seriously tough political infighter and campaigner–a style that hasn’t won him any friends in the past, but has so far managed to get him elected to multiple terms in Washington. They, (Progress Kentucky), thought they would try to grab momentum on the down and dirty track, before King Mitch could get there. But, it was ham-handed at best. Boneheaded at least. Racist at worst.

I have to say this is the first time I can recall a politician being able to plant a flag on top of Morality Mountain before he even has an opponent.

One thing McConnell has never really worried about was holding the high moral ground. It’s not that he didn’t want it, he just never seemed to be able to stake it out. Now he’s begun the campaign with an ad that paints both him, and his wife, in a sympathetic light, and it’s all thanks to Progress Kentucky. While legally PAC groups cannot have a connection to any one candidate, it’s inevitible that whoever runs as McConnell’s Democratic opponent will be linked to this in some way.

Most Kentucky Democrats distanced themselves from PK immediately, but voters have a short memory, and the McConnell money machine will figure out plenty of ways to ride this one for all it’s worth.