Jake at Page One attributes Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's loss to Bruce Lunsford as primarily the fault of the Kentucky Democratic Party leadership for not working harder.
I see it differently. Sure, the KDP leadership makes silly mistakes on a regular basis. But if Bruce Lunsford could not win in this political climate, the ultimate fault is the candidate's. Lunsford lost because he is Lunsford. In a little state, too many people know him and have felt his sharp elbows; he could not reinvent himself.
Crit Luallan or Ben Chandler, on the other hand, could well have won this race this year, and must be kicking themselves for not running.
Lunsford didn't lose because of lack of money or effort. Sen. Chuck Schumer recruited Lunsford to self-fund, and Lunsford obediently ponied up his millions. Lunsford worked hard and waged a very aggressive campaign. Whatever help the KDP failed to provide was more than offset by the ads from national Democrats, 527's and labor unions and Lunsford's vast personal fortune.
Though Lunsford's campaign was aggressive, it was a vacuous campaign. He mimicked the Obama rallying cry for change, but never gave us specifics, and wouldn't even take a position on the financial bailout for a month. It was aggressiveness for the sake of aggressiveness, and all the voters could be sure of -- in this, Lunsford's third campaign -- is that he really, really wants to get elected to something, anything. Any benefit to Kentucky would therefore be incidental to Lunsford's personal aggrandizement.
Kentuckians understood that without McConnell, as far as the elites in Washington are concerned, our state might as well not exist. Kentuckians picked the man who can prevent our state from being invisible and forgotten when the pork is served. And under and Obama administration, make no mistake, the amount of pork will be stunning.
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3 comments:
Uh, sweety, it's Luallen, not Luellen.
And Bruce did not run an aggressive campaign. They constantly vetted everything for days on end. They were so afraid of the McConnell machine that they wouldn't release a damn PLAYLIST OF SONGS to ME, their supporter.
Bruce's campaign did, however, do everything it could on the campaigning front. The KDP didn't do anything with the coordinated campaign and basically wasted the DSCC dollars that rolled in. Jennifer wouldn't and didn't do anything to help Bruce. Jennifer also lost all the State Senate races. And couldn't do anything to help her U.S. Congressional candidates. It's not just on the candidates.
It is true that Lunsford was very odd about releasing the list of cars he drive, much like the playlist. Let us know if you ever find out what he listens to!
Bruce was fine with releasing everything. Unfortunately, his handlers were the ones who were terrified.
His original playlist was great and would have been appreciated by all. But it contained music from Kanye West, which is obviously scary for white people or whatever. I'll try to remember to publish the dumbed-down version they eventually gave me weeks later, after I called them out.
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