Two Largest Newspapers In Kentucky Endorse Alison Lundergan Grimes

I find Mitch McConnell to be a disgusting, power mad hypocrite who cares nothing for the average citizen in Kentucky.  Rather, for McConnell, it's all about power and furthering special interest groups who are eroding the American Dream and savaging the middle class.  Apparently, Kentucky's two largest newspapers have a similar view of McConnell.  Both the Lexington Herald-Leader and the Courier-Journal have endorsed McConnell's opponent, Alison Grimes in pretty scathing editorials.  Politicususa has details:

In strong editorials, the two largest newspapers in Kentucky have both endorsed Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes over Sen. Mitch McConnell in the Kentucky Senate election.

The Lexington Herald-Leader’s editorial board wrote,

McConnell does have power. He commands a perpetual-motion money machine; dollars flow in, favors flow out.

The problem is how McConnell uses his power. He has repeatedly hurt the country to advance his political strategy.

McConnell has sabotaged jobs and transportation bills, even as Kentucky’s unemployment exceeds the nation’s and an Interstate 75 bridge crumbles over the Ohio River. He blocked tax credits for companies that move jobs back to this country while preserving breaks for those that move jobs overseas. He opposed extending unemployment benefits, while bemoaning the “jobless” recovery. He brags about resolving crises that he helped create. The Senate may never recover from the bitter paralysis McConnell has inflicted through record filibusters that allow his minority to rule by obstruction.

….

Kentuckians can’t do much to stop a Supreme Court majority that’s enabling the corrosion of our democracy by unlimited, secret contributions, in court cases bearing McConnell’s stamp.

Kentuckians can send a powerful message on Nov. 4 and carve out a better future by retiring McConnell and making Grimes their senator.

The Courier-Journal editorial board’s endorsement of Grimes was significant, because that is where the “scandal” over her refusal to disclose who she voted for in 2012 blew up.  The C-J editorial board wrote,

More discouraging — and most important to voters — is that he appears lacking a vision for Kentucky or the country as a whole. Rather, his decades-long drive to increase his power and political standing has resulted in this campaign based on his boast that if he is re-elected and Republicans win a Senate majority, he would become Senate majority leader. Some voters believe Kentucky will benefit from keeping Mr. McConnell in such a national leadership position, but we believe that alone is not a reason for giving him another term.

Ms. Grimes has laid out positions on a number of issues that matter to voters, ones that separate her from her opponent.

….

Kentucky needs a U.S. senator who sees a higher calling than personal ambition and a greater goal than self-aggrandizement. For those reasons and for her evident potential, we endorse Ms. Grimes for election on Nov. 4.

Both of the endorsements of Grimes are particularly stinging for McConnell because they represent a rejection of his strategy that was designed to make the Kentucky election all about President Obama. The editorial boards made it clear that in their view, this contest is a referendum on Sen. McConnell. The incumbent’s naked lust for personal political power has been the motivating force behind his campaign.

New Poll: Alison Grimes Narrowly Leads Mitch McConnell in Senate Race

Today was a day for celebration, but it is also a day where progressives and LGBT Americans need to realize that they cannot let up in their efforts to defeat Republicans who seek to keep racism, anti-gay discrimination, and vulture capitalism alive and well.  I for one hope that gays will be galvanized by today's historic developments and will not only get out and vote for Democrats in the 2014 midterm elections and encourage their families and friends to do likewise.  Part of this effort is to see individuals like GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.  Thankfully, a new poll suggests that McConnell is in the battle for his political survival (which I want to see him lose).  Salon has details on the new poll results.  Here are excerpts:

Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes narrowly leads Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky’s Senate race, a new Bluegrass poll finds.

The poll gives Grimes a two point lead over the 30-year incumbent, 46 to 44 percent. That’s within the poll’s margin of error, but it’s the first survey to show Grimes in the lead since early June, according to RealClearPolitics’ database. Most recent polls have given McConnell, once seen as the most vulnerable Republican Senate incumbent, a lead in the mid- to high-single digits; the last Bluegrass poll put the GOP stalwart on top, 46 to 42 percent.

The latest survey may yet prove to be an outlier; a CBS/New YorkTimes/YouGov poll released just yesterday showed McConnell with a 47 to 41 percent lead; that survey, however, was conducted from September 20 to October 1, while the Bluegrass poll was taken from September 29 to October 2.

Determining whether the Bluegrass poll is an outlier or the beginning of a new trend will, of course, require more polling. But if Grimes has indeed managed to right her campaign’s ship, observers may ascribe her improving fortunes to a widely-touted new ad featuring Grimes campaigning with former President Bill Clinton. While President Barack Obama is deeply unpopular in Kentucky, Clinton continues to benefit from a reservoir of goodwill in the state, which he was the last Democratic candidate to win in a general election. Politico reported Friday that former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton also plans to campaign with Grimes ahead of the November 4 vote.

 

Mitch McConnell Refuses To Debate Alison Lundergan Grimes

The ever despicable Mitch McConnell, facing a possible defeat in November, has reversed course and is now refusing to debate his Democratic challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes.   God forbid that McConnell have to answer unrehearsed questions - such as why he wants to throw thousands of his state's residence off of health insurance - or respond to Grimes' challenges. Few things would be sweeter than seeing McConnell defeated come November.  Politicususa looks at McConnell's disingenuous decision to back out of his agreed debate.  Here are highlights:

After appearing to agree to a debate with his Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes in late October, Sen. Mitch McConnell abruptly flip-flopped and refused to debate the fiery Democrat.

According to WHAS11, McConnell turned down the debate because he would be on a bus tour of KENTUCKY during the potential dates,

The chances for more than one U.S. Senate debate in Kentucky narrowed Tuesday afternoon when the campaign of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) declined specific dates agreed to less than two hours earlier by Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes.

McConnell’s biggest issue with the format seemed to be that Grimes was going to be there, and he was going to have to answer questions. Mitch McConnell objected to a live audience being present, and the moderator being allowed to ask questions. Sen. McConnell’s excuses are getting more flimsy with each passing day. There is only one current debate scheduled on October 13. 

The only conclusion that can be drawn from McConnell’s behavior is that he is afraid to debate Alison Lundergan Grimes. Mitch McConnell is trying to hide and ride out the storm. His strategy is to win reelection with an onslaught of negative ads against Grimes. McConnell doesn’t believe that voters in all parts of Kentucky deserve to see the candidates live together. 

The Grimes campaign had this to say about Yellow Mitch’s duck and run act, “Mitch McConnell had to invent a phantom bus tour to hide from the fact that he has done next to nothing to help create jobs in 30 years, while we’ve lost thousands of good-paying jobs. Rather than accept multiple opportunities for Kentuckians to hear two very different visions for the future, McConnell is strangely comfortable hiding behind the dark money millionaires and billionaires trying to buy his way back to Washington.”

If Mitch McConnell has his way, he will speak more to the Koch brothers this year than to Kentucky voters.   Sen. McConnell is running scared.

Pray that this foul man is defeated.  Kentucky readers need to get out and vote for Grimes and encourage family members and friends to do likewise.
 

Will Mitch McConnell's Attacks on Alison Grimes Backfire?

Having just triumphed over a thoroughly insane Tea Party candidate, the always sleazy and despicable Mitch McConnell launched into a tirade trashing his Democrat opponent, Alison Grimes.  The unanswered question is whether or not McConnell's chauvinistic, condescending attacks on his female opponent will ultimately bite him in has nasty, foul ass.  Personally, I hope that's the post mortem opinion after November.  A column in the Washington Post looks at what will likely be a very ugly campaign.  Here are some highlights:

McConnell laconically invited a round of applause for Bevin and then moved to his main purpose: treating Alison Lundergan Grimes, his Democratic opponent, not as a person in her own right but rather as an agent for President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

First elected to the Senate three decades ago, McConnell clearly realizes he cannot win on the basis of his own low poll ratings. So he’ll try to survive by running against Democratic politicians who, in this red state, may be even more unpopular.

Thus his reduction of the 35-year-old Grimes to a cipher, the handmaiden to “every Hollywood liberal,” someone who “is in this race because Barack Obama and Harry Reid want her to be in this race.”

But when Grimes spoke at her own primary victory party 75 miles away in Lexington, she was anything but a cipher. She was rousing in assailing McConnell but did not rise up in defense of either Obama or Reid. Indeed, she distanced herself from what she, sounding a McConnell theme, termed the president’s “war on coal,” coal being an issue with symbolic power here beyond its economic impact on the state’s mining counties.

Obama is not on “Kentucky’s 2014 election ballot,” she declared. But McConnell is, and the best way for Kentucky voters to express their dissatisfaction, she said, was to vote out “Senator Gridlock” and to put “people above partisanship.” For good measure, she broached populist pro-labor themes, challenging McConnell for opposing a minimum wage increase and a bill on equal pay for women. She also denounced anti-union right-to-work laws being pushed here by Republicans.

Pro-McConnell forces blanketed the state with an attack spot that reprised his election-night themes and condemned Grimes as “too liberal for Kentucky.” 

Grimes went for a more subtle jibe, with a 60-second spot in which she spoke directly to the camera. “It seems no matter how many elections we have, nothing gets better in Washington. It only gets worse,” she said. “I approved this message because it’s time Washington put the good of our people ahead of the bad that comes from acting petty and small. We’ve had too much of that for too long.”

Few thinks would give me more pleasure than to see McConnell defeated - especially by a woman.