Saturday, October 11, 2008

Weekly Standard on McConnell

Louisville's John David Dyche has written an overview on Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's career and race in the Weekly Standard.

My favorite line:

Always virulently anti-McConnell, the state's big newspapers in Louisville and Lexington are febrile and trembling with political bloodlust at the prospect of vanquishing their longtime nemesis.

Can't you just see David Hawpe and Betty Winston Baye "febrile and trembling with political bloodlust"? Scary stuff . . . would make a good Halloween costume.

And this:

Without a hint of irony, much less decency, the DSCC's debut ad in the race blasts McConnell for backing 1999 banking deregulation that Schumer himself called vital to America's future. But the content matters less than the fact that the DSCC now sees spending in Kentucky as a good investment. More outside money may soon follow.

Almost no one is actually for Lunsford. Labor, liberals, and "yellow dog" Democrats simply hate McConnell. This year that may be enough, but no one should make the mistake of counting out the man Kentuckians of both parties regard as the modern-day heir of Henry Clay.

Granted, the anti-incumbent status is strong, and poses a challenge to McConnell. But Bruce Lunsford is no smooth-talking, hip Barack Obama. As much as Lunsford tries to copy his hero and party standard-bearer, we have been spared the spectre of Lunsford in a bathing suit with his Wayfarers on.

Obama, moreover, will have no coat tails in Kentucky. None. Not because all or most Kentuckians are racist, but rather because all or most Kentuckians prefer capitalism to socialism.

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