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A chock full of all of the latest news on the escalating battle between U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell and his Democratic 2014 challenger, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes from The RP’s KY Political Review:
GRIMES LOADS – “Alison Lundergan Grimes Hires High-Profile Consultants,” National Journal: “Grimes has brought on veteran Democratic pollster Mark Mellman of the Mellman Group to run her polling operation, a spokesman tells the Hotline. Mark Putnam of the Putnam Group, who produced Grimes’ popular 2011 television ad featuring both of her grandmothers, will handle media. And Andrew Kennedy of Kennedy Communications will serve as a senior adviser. Longtime Kentucky consultant Jonathan Hurst will serve as a spokesman. Hurst has a long history with Grimes, having worked on her 2011 race for Secretary of State and with her father at the state Democratic Party. He was also the state director for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2008. The Clintons reportedly urged Grimes to get into the Senate race and Hurst said they will “absolutely” be involved in the campaign.” [National Journal]THE DICHOTOMY, “Alison Lundergan Grimes: The anti-Ashley Judd?” by MSNBC’s Perry Bacon, Jr.: “The easiest way to describe Alison Lundergan Grimes, the relatively unknown Kentucky secretary of state who announced this week she will take on Mitch McConnell in what could be next year’s marquee Senate campaign, is that she is the anti-Ashley Judd. … While Judd is an avowed liberal who speaks at Planned Parenthood events and has publicly praised “Obamacare,” it’s hard to find any public comment Grimes has made about the law or many other hot-button national issues. Roger Alford, The Associated Press’ correspondent in Frankfort, Kentucky’s capital, noted in a recent piece, “the public record shows little about Grimes’ positions on coal, guns, immigration, abortion, same-sex marriage and federal health care reforms.” Grimes’ most prominent move as secretary of state has been to make it easier for Kentuckians serving in the military abroad to register to vote. … In a state President Obama lost by 23 points in November, the most obvious route for Mitch McConnell to victory would be to link a Democratic candidate to the president. With Judd, that would have been extremely easy; with Grimes, it is much harder. As Alford notes, in an unauthorized recording by liberal activists of a meeting earlier this year between McConnell and his operatives, the Republican’s advisers lamented that Grimes endorsed Obama for president in 2012, but “was too smart to use his name.” Grimes instead said publicly that she supported “our party and our nominee.”” [MSNBC]
SOUND BITE – “McConnell: Race vs Grimes about Issues, influence” by WHAS-TV’s Joe Arnold: “In his first appearance back home since Alison Lundergan Grimes announced her bid to unseat him, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) painted the Democratic challenger as a “rookie” who would tow the line of national Democrats. “I think all of you know I love a good campaign,” McConnell told reporters after a groundbreaking for the final phase of the 21st Century Parks project. … “And I think we’ll have one that will provide plenty of opportunities for you all over the next year and a half.” Asked about polls that show him vulnerable in the 2014 race, McConnell predicted Grimes’ vulnerabilities will frame the campaign. … “There will be two issues in this race,” McConnell said. “One of them is issues themselves. My opponent, of course, will support the agenda of Barack Obama and Harry Reid. She may try to claim otherwise during the campaign but we all know how that works. She’ll be on board with the effort to implement Obamacare and the War on Coal.”” [WHAS]
—“John Yarmuth on 2014: Mitch McConnell ‘scared’,” POLITICO: “Sen. Mitch McConnell is “scared to death” of running against Alison Lundergan Grimes, Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) said Thursday morning. … “They’re showing how much fear they have about this race because our airwaves are already crammed with negative ads about Allison,” Yarmuth said on MSNBC. “We know he’s scared to death.” … Yarmuth said recent polls have shown it’s going to be a tight race. “Even McConnell’s own pollster has the race within 5 points,” he said. “He knows he’s in for one heck of a fight.”” [POLITICO]
WINNING THE WEB – McConnell’s campaign released late Wednesday its third video in two days. The Senator, in a voiceover, read a verse of “America, The Beautiful” in the 4th of July-themed video. [YouTube]
DAYS UNTIL : Fancy Farm2013: 29 … Next fundraising deadline: 87 … Primary Election filing deadline: 207 … Fancy Farm 2014: 393 … Ky. 2014 Primary Election day: 319 … 2014 General Election day: 487
NOT NOW : “Democrat Tom FitzGerald decides not to run for U.S. Senate” by H-L’s Jack Brammer – “FitzGerald, in an email late Wednesday, said he has received hundreds of letters, emails and calls of support from across the state since it became public earlier this year that he was considering running for the seat now held by Republican Mitch McConnell of Louisville. He said the idea of leaving almost 30 years of environmental advocacy as director of the Kentucky Resources Council was “exciting and daunting, a little heady and very humbling,” but he realized that with the environmental problems facing Kentuckians “it is not time to step away from my current work.” FitzGerald is a lifelong Democrat who has never run for public office.” [H-L]
PAUL’S PRESCRIPTION – “Rand Paul says Alison Lundergan Grimes should ‘disown the president’,” H-L: “U.S. Sen. Rand Paul suggested Wednesday that Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes should consider disowning President Barack Obama if she hopes to run a competitive race against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. … “I don’t know it will be as competitive as some think it will be,” Paul said Wednesday in a brief news conference after speaking to about 140 people at a Scott County Republican Party Independence Day Luncheon. … “The biggest thing and the hardest part for any Democrat to win in Kentucky for a federal office is that you pretty much have to disown the president,” Paul said.” [H-L]
—JOHN Y. BROWN, III offered his political advice to McConnell & Grimes on July 4th: “To challenger and current Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes: … Alison, you should embrace that you are the endearing and energetic youthful candidate who is very bright and knowledgeable— but also unpredictable. It’s not your youth or political party or campaign style that distinguishes you most for Senator McConnell. It’s the fact that Sen McConnell is the most prepared, disciplined, and predictable politician on the political scene today. …
“As for Senator McConnell, on the other hand, I would suggest running a disciplined tight ship and not taking a day or even several hours for granted. Be light and funny not exasperated and bored with your younger opponent. You must show respect and you must show manners reflective of the sexes in the South. … Be the well oiled, disciplined and well-managed machine you know best how to be—and chip away methodically and relentlessly. …
“The race won’t be about “Hope” or “Staying the course” or a dozen other political clichés. It will likely instead be about something more basic: To stick with what we know (sticking with the status quo) or trying something new (“rolling the dice,” so to speak). And how fitting it is that the race takes place in a state with a deep gambling tradition but today is ambivalent about expanding gaming.” [The RP]
By Jonathan Miller, on Wed Jul 3, 2013 at 12:05 PM ET
If you haven’t yet subscribed to The RP’s KY Political Brief– prepared every weekday morning by wunderkind Bradford Queen with links to all of the day’s Kentucky political news — now is the time. Click here to subscribeFOR FREE!
With Alison Lundergan Grimes’ announcement just a few days old, it seems like every news organization in the country is covering her challenge of U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
From this morning’s KY Political Brief:
AND THEY’RE OFF – “McConnell vs. Grimes: Let’s get ready to rumble,” CNN: “It’s game on in Kentucky, in what could end up being the most expensive and nasty 2014 Senate race in the country. One day after Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who many in the Democratic party consider their best hope to unseat Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell in next year’s midterm elections, announced that she’ll challenge the longtime GOP senator, and the emails from both sides are flying. … It’s part of a strategy by national Republicans and the McConnell campaign to tie Grimes to President Barack Obama, who lost Kentucky by 23 percentage points in last November’s election. … The Democrats strategy is just as clear as their Republican counterparts. They want to make this contest all about Mitch McConnell and his three decades in the nation’s capital.” [CNN]BEHIND THE SCENES – “‘Unorthodox’ and sometimes ‘surreal’ meeting prompted Grimes to reveal, and possibly to make, decision to run” by CN|2’s Ryan Alessi: “Even Alison Lundergan Grimes didn’t know what she would announce to the world late Monday afternoon when she arrived at the building she used as the headquarters for her campaign in 2011. Or, at least, she didn’t let on to the more than 100 supporters she called there that she had made a decision about running for the U.S. Senate until the very end of the meeting. Interviews with more than a half-dozen people who attended the meeting — several of whom asked not to be quoted — yielded descriptions of Grimes’ approach to the announcement as “unorthodox,” “unprecedented,” “fascinating” and, at times, “surreal.” Instead of telling supporters whether she was running for Senate, Grimes opened it up for them to tell her what they thought. After the first several people spoke, Grimes began calling on others by name to give their takes. After nearly an hour, a consensus emerged: she should run for the party’s nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell. …”Grimes opened the meeting up by thanking her supporters for traveling from urban areas and more rural areas of western and eastern Kentucky. Without tipping her hand about which way she was leaning, she told the group she wanted to hear from them. … It was [State Sen. Julian] Carroll who got the meeting going with a fire-and-brimstone speech urging Grimes to carry the party’s mantle against McConnell. … Carroll, who has spent much of the last 50 years in state government, told the group that McConnell can be beaten – that he has lost touch with voters and the priorities of Kentucky and that he has been an obstructionist. He told Grimes that she has the smarts, personality and network to beat him.” [CN|2 Politics]
THE VIDEOS – “Mitch McConnell attacks Alison Lundergan Grimes with Auto-Tune,” WaPo: “Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has responded quickly to his new Democratic opponent — with Auto-Tune. Over an autotuned beat, a new Web video from the senator’s campaign rhymes “Alison Lundergan Grimes” to various lines of attack — “Not Ready for Prime Time,” “Sticks to Party Line,” “Left Wing Mime.”” [WaPo] … SEE the auto-tune video [YouTube]
—In the McConnell campaign’s second video release of yesterday, it criticized Grimes’ announcement for being quickly arranged. “Checklist” was released on YouTube last evening.WATCH [YouTube]
ABOUT THAT ANNOUNCEMENT – “Alison Lundergan Grimes’s underwhelming launch — and what it means,” WaPo: “Alison Lundergan Grimes is taking on perhaps the most fearsome Republican campaign operation in politics: the team of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. That daunting task is what makes her formal announcement on Monday all the more puzzling. To wit: * At her press conference, Grimes was flanked by a banner for her 2011 secretary of state campaign rather than a new banner for her Senate campaign. … * Grimes’s announcement was not promoted on her Twitter account, her Facebook page or really by anyone other than her top adviser, who told the Associated Press about the 3 p.m. announcement on Monday morning. … * As of Tuesday afternoon, Grimes still had no campaign Web site, though GrimesforSenate.com and AlisonforSenate.com appear to have been snapped up by someone. That means that anybody who was excited by her launch and wants to contribute money to her campaign has no outlet to do so. …* Grimes showed up more than half an hour late for her press conference, after gathering with advisers and supporters to inform them of her decision.” [WaPo]
—“Grimes’ supporters pleased she is running but dread the attack ads” by CNHI’s Ronnie Ellis: “It wasn’t the smoothest of political announcements, although it would be hard to match for suspense. When Alison Lundergan Grimes, the 34-year-old Democratic first-term Secretary of State, entered the downstairs of the building on Democrat Drive here Monday, there was no guarantee she would tell supporters she was running for the U.S. Senate against Kentucky’s most powerful Republican, Sen. Mitch McConnell. Even after the meeting began, most of the approximately 100 people in the room remained in suspense. Grimes didn’t tell them she was running – she instead asked them what they thought. …
“Reporters and television cameras were already camped out in a sweltering room upstairs, waiting for the promised 3 p.m. announcement when they heard a burst of cheers from downstairs, which most took as an indication Grimes had told supporters she would run. They grew impatient as 3 p.m. came and went. They heard another cheer from downstairs and several Grimes supporters began filing into the room with smiles on their faces. … Meanwhile, Grimes was apparently on the telephone, telling her mother and others of her decision. Upstairs, one of her advisors, Jonathan Hurst, stepped to the microphone and told the reporters she’d be coming to the podium shortly. By the time Grimes appeared, it was 30 minutes past the announced 3 p.m. time for the announcement. She stood before a Secretary of State banner because “that’s all we had,” according to one of her staff.” [CNHI]
—“An Awkward Start to McConnell-Grimes Race,” WSJ: “Senate campaigns aren’t decided 16 months before Election Day, but the race in Kentucky between Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes has gotten off to a decidedly bizarre start. First, Ms. Grimes announced her candidacy in a hastily planned, poorly organized press conference in which the backdrop advertised her current post (Kentucky’s secretary of state) rather than the one she is seeking (U.S. senator). Befuddled reporters quickly panned her initial foray into national politics. The Grimes campaign drew another round of taunts for unveiling a campaign website that is so barebones it looks like a relic of the early Internet era. The website and the hastily arranged news conference fed the impression that the 34-year-old might not be ready for an expensive, hard-fought tussle with Mr. McConnell. Then, Tuesday afternoon, the McConnell campaign sought to seize on the bad buzz by trotting out its own catchy but somewhat nonsensical web ad mocking his newly declared Democratic opponent as a self-centered proxy for Washington liberals who is “not ready for prime time.” It ended with a disclosure that misspelled Mr. McConnell’s surname.” [WSJ]
ASHLEY JUDD jumps in to support Grimes’ bid, tweeting yesterday: “Even in thick woods outstanding news filters through. Thrilled for the people of KY & ready to fight beside @AlisonForKY @KySecofState”
DAYS UNTIL : Fancy Farm2013: 31 … Next fundraising deadline: 89 … Primary Election filing deadline: 209 … Fancy Farm 2014: 395 … Ky. 2014 Primary Election day: 321 … 2014 General Election day: 489
TEA PARTY TALK : “National tea party group urges Senator Mitch McConnell to consider retirement” by C-J’s Joe Gerth: “The head of a national political action committee with tea party leanings is urging Sen. Mitch McConnell to consider retirement from the U.S. Senate rather than face losing to Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes. … “Mitch McConnell is now the least electable Republican senator running for reelection in 2014,” Matt Hoskins, the executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund, told the Washington Post on Tuesday. “He could lose this race and cost Republicans the majority. He needs to consider whether it might be time to hang it up.” … In an interview with The Courier-Journal, Hoskins said he’s concerned that McConnell will lose moderate Democrats and independents who have helped elect him in the past. …
“The Senate Conservatives Fund is a super PAC that was created by former U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, who was an early leader of the tea party movement. He quit the senate earlier this year to become president of the Heritage Foundation and is no longer associated with the PAC. The group has never been in step with McConnell or the Republican establishment from where he comes. In 2010, the group, at DeMint’s direction, endorsed Rand Paul for the Senate while McConnell was backing then Secretary of State Trey Grayson.” [C-J]
MORE ANALYSIS – Jonathan Miller for HuffPost, “How Alison Lundergan Grimes Can Defeat Mitch McConnell”: “… Alison Lundergan Grimes can beat Mitch McConnell. But like most congressional campaigns, which often can be decided by the national political winds, Grimes’ success will be determined by several factors over which she will be able to exercise very little oversight. Here are a few that might make the difference between a Grimes victory and a McConnell sixth term … Barack Obama … The McConnell team has not merely hinted that it will be doing everything in its power to tie Alison Grimes to the president, who is quite unpopular in this deeply red state; it has whack-a-moled the theme in all of its early political advertisements. … Independent Political Organization Spending … While editorial pages and good government activists have pilloried the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United that provided corporations with the same political speech rights as individuals, there’s been no more prominent and passionate advocate for unrestricted (and undisclosed) campaign spending than Mitch McConnell.” [HuffPost]
—“Grimes faces tough odds in bid to unseat McConnell” by H-L’s Beth Musgrave: “Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes faces tough odds in her campaign to unseat U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, but the race remains competitive, political pundits said Tuesday. Grimes’ biggest problem: She must carry the political ball-and-chain that is President Barack Obama as she runs against a five-term incumbent who already has more than $8 million in his campaign war chest. In 2012, Obama collected just under 40 percent of the vote in Kentucky, winning only four counties. Voters in Central Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District also booted Democrat Ben Chandler out of office, leaving Louisville’s John Yarmuth as the only Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation. … “That’s a huge problem for Grimes,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Report, a nonpartisan political newsletter that handicaps political races. “Mitch is not widely popular. But the bigger problem for Grimes is she is a Democrat in a federal race in a Republican-leaning state.”” [H-L]
—“Kentucky U.S. Senate Race Pits Grimes Inexperience Against McConnell Unpopularity” by WFPL’s Phillip Bailey: “The entrance of Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes in the race for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Republican Mitch McConnell makes the Kentucky contest one of the most closely watched in the country. And the early jabs appear to put up Grimes’s relative inexperience against McConnell’s wide unpopularity. After meeting with supporters, Grimes announced this week she intends to seek the party’s nomination to run against the GOP leader next year. Immediately, the McConnell campaign and GOP groups mocked Grimes’s rollout as a sign the first-term secretary of state isn’t prepared to run at the national level. The amount of attention spent on poking fun at Grimes could be further evidence this race will be the nastiest in 2014. But the Grimes team argues a full campaign rollout will be active by the end of July, and the criticisms are a petty distraction.” [WFPL]
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue Jul 2, 2013 at 3:34 PM ET
I realize that this is supposed to be an attack video; but the tune is so catchy that if I were the Grimes campaign, I might appropriate it for a positive ad campaign.
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue Jul 2, 2013 at 1:30 PM ET
In his latest column for The Huffington Post, The RP argues that Alison Lundergan Grimes CAN defeat Mitch McConnell. But that much is out of her control. Here’s an excerpt:
Alison Lundergan Grimes can beat Mitch McConnell. But like most congressional campaigns, which often can be decided by the national political winds, Grimes’ success will be determined by several factors over which she will be able to exercise very little oversight. Here are a few that might make the difference between a Grimes victory and a McConnell sixth term:
Barack Obama
The McConnell team has not merely hinted that it will be doing everything in its power to tie Alison Grimes to the President who is quite unpopular in this deeply red state; it has whack-a-moled the theme in all of its early political advertisements. Just this past week, a GOP SuperPAC spent more than a quarter of a million dollars attacking the non-announced Grimes as a Senator “who would jam through Obama’s agenda — massive spending, Obamacare, the war on coal.”
This case would ordinarily be a tough sell: Grimes has long had both feet planted in the Clinton camp, has received considerable support from the coal industry, and in the mostly administrative position of Secretary of State, has never had to take a position on the hot-button social and economic issues that have made Obama unpopular in the Bluegrass State. In her brief announcement press conference, she signaled an early distancing from the President when she dodged a reporter’s question about Obamacare by answering, “Regardless of the vote that is issued in this race, we cannot change who our president is. But we can change who we have in Washington representing Kentucky.”
Still, any case can be made when it is backed with many millions of dollars in television ads. Which brings us to Factor 2:
If you haven’t yet subscribed to The RP’s KY Political Brief— prepared every weekday morning by wunderkind Bradford Queen with links to all of the day’s Kentucky political news — now is the time. Click here to subscribeFOR FREE!
Here’s what you may have missed today– all the latest on the upcoming epic battle between Mitch McConnell and Alison Lundergan Grimes:
IN WALKS GRIMES – “Ky. Secretary of State to challenge Mitch McConnell” by AP’s Roger Alford: “Declaring that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has “lost touch” with Kentucky voters, the state’s 34-year-old secretary of state announced Monday that she would seek to unseat him in 2014, ending a long search by Democrats for a competitive challenger to the deep-pocketed, five-term Republican. Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who had been touted as the Democrats’ best hope of defeating McConnell, began seriously considering the race after actress Ashley Judd opted out in March. Grimes, a lawyer from a well-connected Kentucky family who was first elected in 2011, launched her bid with tough words for the 71-year-old McConnell, the longest-serving U.S. senator in state history. … “I agree with thousands of Kentuckians that Kentucky is tired of 28 years of obstruction, that Kentucky is tired of someone who has voted against raising the minimum wage while all the while quadrupling his own net worth,” Grimes told reporters. “Kentucky is tired of a senior senator that has lost touch with Kentucky issues, voters and their values.”” [AP]
—The SCENE – Kevin Wheatley: “Besides [State Sen. and former Gov. Julian] Carroll, others in attendance Monday include former Gov. Martha Layne Collins, House Majority Caucus Chair Sannie Overly of Paris, Sen. Kathy Stein of Lexington, Rep. Mary Lou Marzian of Louisville and Rep. Darryl Owens of Louisville. House Speaker Greg Stumbo also sent text messages from a vacation in Morocco Monday to House members in the meeting with Grimes.” [The State Journal]
—The TIMING – Ronnie Ellis: “… The timing of Grimes’ announcement may have been tied to Federal Election Commission campaign reporting dates. By waiting until Monday, Grimes didn’t have to see an empty campaign fund contrasted with McConnell’s well-stuffed coffers. McConnell has raised nearly $13 million but that doesn’t include how much he raised during the quarter which just ended, so his significant edge will only grow.” [CNHI]
—The WEEKS AHEAD – Ryan Alessi: “Jonathan Hurst who has been acting as an adviser to Grimes told reporters after the press conference that the next step is to begin the campaign process which will likely include announcements in several parts over the state in the next month. Hurst said decisions as to who will manage the campaign will also be made in the coming weeks.” [CN|2 Politics]
—C-J’s Joe Gerth, “Alison Lundergan Grimes to run against Sen. Mitch McConnell” [C-J]
—H-L’s Jack Brammer, “Grimes will challenge McConnell for U.S. Senate seat in 2014” [H-L]
—NYTimes, “Kentucky Secretary of State Will Challenge McConnell in Senate Race” [NYTimes]
—The Hill, “Democrats land top recruit to challenge McConnell in Kentucky” [The Hill]
—ABC News, “Alison Lundergan Grimes To Challenge Mitch McConnell For U.S. Senate In Kentucky” [ABC News]
GOP RESPONSE– McConnell statement, in an e-mail with subject line: “President Obama’s Kentucky Candidate”: “Accepting the invitation from countless Washington liberals to become President Obama’s Kentucky candidate was a courageous decision by Alison Lundergan Grimes and I look forward to a respectful exchange of ideas. The next sixteen months will provide a great opportunity for Kentuckians to contrast a liberal agenda that promotes a war on coal families and government rationed health care with someone who works everyday to protect Kentuckians from those bad ideas. Together we’ve invested a lot to ensure that Kentucky’s voice in the U.S. Senate is heard from the front of the line rather than the back-bench and I intend to earn the support to keep it there.”
—Sen. Damon Thayer criticized Grimes’ use of her old ‘Grimes for Secretary of State’ signage for the U.S. Senate announcement. In a series of tweets yesterday afternoon, Thayer, the Ky. Senate majority floor leader, raised questions about whether using the old backdrop was a potential violation of campaign finance laws. “@AlisonForKY banner at presser was for a state race. She used it to announce for federal race. Don’t think it’s legal. #KREF ruling needed … As Chief Elections Officer, @AlisonForKY should know the law.” Thayer tweeted. Some national Republican strategists joined in the discussion while Democrats defended her.
DAYS UNTIL : Fancy Farm 2013: 32 … Next fundraising deadline: 90 … Primary Election filing deadline: 210 … Fancy Farm 2014: 396 … Ky. 2014 Primary Election day: 322 … 2014 General Election day: 490
THE ANALYSIS – “Re-Election Is Likely for McConnell, but Not Guaranteed,” NYTimes’ FiveThirtyEight blog: “Mr. McConnell, the Senate minority leader, is likely to win re-election. … However, he is unlikely to sail to victory. Ms. Grimes was elected to statewide office in 2011 with 60 percent of the vote. She has deep ties to Democratic politics, both in Kentucky and nationwide, as the daughter of the state’s former Democratic Party chairman, Jerry Lundergan. Those connections and the high-profile nature of the race should make it relatively easy for her to raise money. … While there have not yet been any nonpartisan surveys testing a potential contest between Mr. McConnell and Ms. Grimes, the four partisan polls that have been conducted so far (three by the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling and one by the Republican-leaning Wenzel Strategies) have shown a relatively tight race, with Mr. McConnell leading by an average of 4.5 percentage points. … “In many ways, Ms. Grimes faces a challenge similar to that faced earlier this year by Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the Democrat who challenged Representative Mark Sanford in a special election in South Carolina’s First Congressional District: to defeat a vulnerable Republican opponent — Mr. Sanford because of his past scandals and Mr. McConnell because of his mediocre popularity — on solidly Republican terrain. Ms. Colbert Busch lost that race, and Ms. Grimes, too, will have a hard time overcoming Kentucky’s Republican gravity. The McConnell campaign will probably attempt to tie her to Mr. Obama, who remains highly unpopular in the state.” [NYTimes]
—“Crystal Ball holds firm on Likely R rating,”Larry Sabato tweets (@LarrySabato). “McConnell has enormous advantages in strongly anti-Obama KY. Low turnout midterm, too. … I’ve followed McConnell’s races since ’84. I’ll bet polls get close at some point in fall ’14. … KY doesn’t ‘love’ McConnell. It’s more of a business/ideological pact. McC won’t be caught napping, will pull away by end.”
—WaPo’s The Fix blog, “The nastiest Senate race in the country just started”: “Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes’ decision to challenge Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2014 ensures the political world one thing: This will be the nastiest race in the country. Here’s why. … 1. National Democrats hate McConnell. Hate is a strong word. But it is not too strong a word for how Democrats feel about McConnell. … 2. McConnell is famous/infamous for the campaigns he runs. McConnell is legendary in political circles for his willingness to unapologetically savage the person he is running against. … 3. No one (really) knows who Lundergan Grimes is. Yes, she has been elected to statewide office. And, yes, her father is the former (and longtime) chairman of the state party — who also happens to be a friend of Bill Clinton. But, no, no one in the state really knows who Alison Lundergan Grimes is.” [WaPo]
—National Journal, “Grimes Offers a Preview for Red-State Democrats”: “Grimes will start out the race as an underdog, but has an inviting target in McConnell. Her biggest challenge will be distancing herself from the Obama administration’s unpopular policies on energy (read: coal) and gun rights. Democrats are capable of winning statewide races in Kentucky, but it’s tougher in a federal contest where control of the Senate is at stake. Her announcement was highly unconventional: on the week of July 4, without throngs of cheering supporters in attendance, having briefed only a small group of friends and allies right before the speech. She’ll need a similar outside-the-box campaign to pull off the upset. Other red-state Democrats, from Mark Pryor to Mary Landrieu, will be watching closely.” [National Journal]
—POLITICO, “Alison Lundergan Grimes challenges Mitch McConnell in Kentucky”: “… Grimes had long been seen by Kentucky insiders as unlikely to run, given her cautious nature and the fact she appeared to be angling for a statewide bid, whether it was attorney general or the governor’s mansion in 2015. If she runs and loses against McConnell, it could hurt a future bid for higher office — even one against Sen. Rand Paul in 2016, when the Kentucky Republican may opt for a White House bid.” [POLITICO]
—AL MAYO: “Can Grimes Win? Yes – BUT!” – KPB column: “… She’s by far the strongest candidate they have available, so it’s the best possible news for Democrats, but Grimes has her work cut out for her. She was flanked by family, friends and a few high-powered Kentucky Democrats. … Grimes needs to be mega-prepared for MAJOR adversity in this campaign. … What to expect from this race? Look for nastiness. Pure and simple. … What I cannot stress enough is that Grimes can’t sit back, and wait for McConnell to make a mistake. It’s. Not. Going. To. Happen.” [KPB column]
—“Yarmuth: Grimes can raise the money and provide the contrast to defeat McConnell” [CN|2]
—The Guardian, “Mitch McConnell’s challenger Grimes has her work cut out in Kentucky” [Guardian]
—John Y. Brown, III: “Courage in the Arena” [The RP]
Click here to get all of the latest on McConnell/Grimes delivered free to your email box every weekday morning.
The Licking Valley Courier, a small town Eastern Kentucky weekly newspaper that doesn’t have an online version, had some clever words to share about the Rebuilding West Liberty initiative discussed on these virtual pages. Thanks to Miranda Cantrell, News Editor, we post the column of Publisher Earl Kinner in its entirety below:
Town’s rebuilding plan catches eye of Clinton Global Initiative
Some pleasant ironies in story about Judge Conley’s invitation to participate in international forum
Judge Conley holding a copy of the Courier
Not many readers, we suspect, will fail to detect a bit of pleasant irony underlying the news this week about Morgan County Judge Executive Tim Conley’s invitation to participate in an international forum established by former Democrat President Bill Clinton.
After a tornado last year devastated West Liberty, the town of 3,500 began an initiative called Rebuilding West Liberty, which was designed to not only help re-build the town but to make it more energy-efficient and serve as a model for other towns looking to create sustainability and entrepreneurship.
The initiative has caught the eye of national leaders, and Morgan County Judge Executive Tim Conley has been invited to attend the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in Chicago on June 13 as a member of the Residential Energy Efficiency Working Group. This according to former Kentucky State Treasurer Jonathan Miller on his web site, The Recovering Politician. (Miller is a Democrat and Conley is a Republican).
After the tornado killed seven people and destroyed 400 homes, businesses, and government structures, the community began rebuilding with energy efficient and cost-effective techniques. At the conference Conley will provide insight on “rebuilding roughly half of the 300 residential homes that were lost to the storm,” Miller writes.
The solution West Liberty came up with was to construct “150 affordable, highly energy-efficient factory-built and site-built homes,” Miller reports. “The three-year project includes a $27 million investment of equity, grants, debt and operating grants to complete the project in West Liberty and scale innovations piloted for other disaster response efforts and affordable housing projects for factory-built homes across the nation.
Many will recall the bruising but unsuccessful effort by Democrat Party leaders (both at the local and state levels) to block Judge Conley’s bid for re-election to a second term in 2006. Thankfully, the world has moved on and the ironies called to mind by Miller’s story are pleasant to contemplate. To wit:
Jonathan Miller, a Democrat stalwart whose party virtually bet the farm trying to defeat Conley. A Harvard graduate from Louisville, Miller served as national director of Students for Gore in 1988 when Al Gore was running for President, later worked for Gore when he was Vice President in the Clinton Administration, and also served two terms as Kentucky State Treasurer, and later as Finance Secretary for Gov. Beshear.
Tim Conley is a County Judge and a graduate of Morgan County High School from Honeymoon Holler.
The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), an initiative of the Clinton Foundation established by former Democrat President Bill Clinton, convenes global leaders to create and implement innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. CGI Annual Meetings have brought together more than 150 heads of state, 20 Nobel Prize laureates, and hundreds of leading CEO’s, heads of foundations and NGOs, major philanthropists, and members of the media. To date CGI members have made more than 2,300 commitments designed “to improve the lives” of over 400 million people in more than 180 countries. When fully funded and implemented, these commitments will be valued at more than $73.1 billion. Clearly, the Clinton Global Initiative is no small potatoes.
As for Judge Conley’s invitation to speak at the CGI’s international forum in Chicago next week, congratulations to him. He’s one of our own and proof certain that country-bred common sense, sincerity, and competence trump lots of things, including partisan politics, and that’s as it should be.
Click here to join the great work being done by Rebuilding West Liberty.
By Jonathan Miller, on Sat Jun 8, 2013 at 12:36 PM ET
I was greeted this morning by a letter to the editor in my hometown paper, the Lexington Herald-Leader that repeated a variety of bizarre conspiracy theories (including the one where Bush and Cheney ordered the 9/11 attacks) and ended with this highly offensive line:
A continuation of 5,700-plus years of Jews buying their host country’s leadership in the name of a non-existing God of Abraham.
There’s no one who feels more strongly about the sacred nature of our First Amendment rights. I support anyone’s freedom to spew hateful, bigoted trash like this.
But there is no obligation on the part of the Lexington Herald-Leader to publish such offensiveness. Indeed, with all of the letters I imagine that fill their in boxes every day, I would imagine that they wouldn’t have room for such an blatant anti-Semitic rant.
I’m hopeful that we will hear an explanation or an apology soon from the paper’s leadership.
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Jun 6, 2013 at 10:00 PM ET
Click here to purchase this week only for 99 cents
On tonight’s MSNBC “Hardball,” host Chris Matthews plugged The Recovering Politician’s Twelve Step Program to Survive Crisis after a discussion with former RNC Chair Michael Steele, a co-author of the book.
By Jonathan Miller, on Mon Jun 3, 2013 at 4:06 PM ET
Great piece about our exciting Rebuilding West Liberty initiative (Read more about it here) from WYMT’s Michelle Heron:
To city leaders, the honor is huge compared to the devastation an EF3 tornado left in its wake more than one year ago.
“We’re hoping that the visibility will bring a whole lot of new investment into West Liberty to help us realize our ambitious goal,” Former Kentucky State Treasurer Jonathan Miller said.
The town of West Liberty will be recognized next week in Chicago by former President Bill Clinton’s Clinton Global Initiative for a project called Rebuilding West Liberty.
“But several months ago, the community got together and decided we want to rebuild the community in a strategic way, to rebuild it better than they found it,” Miller added.
Judge Executive Time Conley says the project focuses on a number of strategies to make the town stronger, not just in a physical way, but also in energy efficiency.
“We want to make sure the homes and buildings we’re building are very high energy efficient buildings that can help us not only conserve energy but show how Appalachian towns can be built to a phase that is business friendly and economically friendly,” Conley said.
The three year project also includes a fiber optic system and downtown Wi-Fi hub paid for by a variety of grants.
“Hopefully not only would the town thrive and jobs be created, it can serve as a model for other disaster ravaged towns or for the rest of rural America,” Miller said.
President Clinton is not a stranger to the mountains; he made a stop in Hazard back in 1999 during a four day tour to encourage businesses to invest in rural communities.
“This tragedy is an opportunity to rebuild ourselves in a new way,” Miller said.
A way that puts West Liberty back on the map.
The Clinton Global Initiative meeting takes place June 13-14th.
By Artur Davis, on Tue Apr 23, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
Give the New Republic’s Adam Winkler credit for laying some of the blame for the collapse of background checks on gun sales not just on NRA sophistry but on a poorly executed, badly timed, overly polarizing campaign by the Obama Administration. As Winkler points out, the over-reach of going after an assault weapon ban boomeranged badly, serving only to galvanize opposition and define even incremental regulations as a wedge to confiscate guns. And the virtues of a go-for-broke strategy, whatever they were, never compensated for the fact that no assault weapons ban had even a remote chance of passing the House.
I would add an additional point that goes much deeper than tactics and the debate over guns. To a degree that could not have been anticipated, and seems doubly odd for a reelected president, Barack Obama smothers his own initiatives. He has the capacity to lend eloquence to his own followers’ views, but no demonstrated ability to organize them behind any cause other than putting him in office. He moves literally no sector of the electorate that didn’t vote for him. His intervention in a legislative fight seems good primarily for preserving gridlock. Obama wins elections but through pathways that close quickly and elevate few specific policy aims: in 2008, a backlash against George Bush’s unpopularity and an airy promise of a post-racial society, and in 2012, a relentlessly negative siege against Mitt Romney. And the country that has elected Obama twice is still split to the core, more so today than when he was a senator signing book contracts. And the deepest splits are more around the country’s perception of Obama than around any singular issue.
None of this means, of course, that there are not a variety of other elements that contribute to the hyper-polarization of the past four years, from the internet’s inevitable pipeline for misinformation, to the continued weight of interest groups like the NRA, to a cable culture that dismisses any efforts by politicians to craft a middle ground as expediency. But it would take an element of willful denial to ignore the fact that Obama occupies the single most divisive space in American politics since Nixon, and that one of the costs is a presidency that is frustratingly weak at persuasion.
It is not too early to wonder if Obama a generation from now looks weirdly like, of all people, Margaret Thatcher: a highly effective campaigner whose victories spun off the unintended consequence of an entrenched cultural opposition, and whose “conviction politics” seem like a relic. Twenty plus years after Thatcherism formally ended, it has been supplanted by a run of center-leaning British prime ministers with a penchant for downplaying sharp ideological rifts. It is not hard to imagine that Obama’s successors won’t be similarly preoccupied with navigating away from the intense divisions of the Obama era.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: Obama the Polarizer
