The Unintended Consequences of a Grime's Candidacy

Just when we could no longer take the suspense:  Alison Lundergan Grimes has announced that she will challenge Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. She wants to bring those speedy powers of analysis and decision-making she used to decide to run and go to Washington, where she can perform "due diligence" by wringing her hands and mulling over some really tough decisions.

Grimes will get a decent amount of the votes, certainly 45 percent. Democrats still maintain their registration advantage here.

 And her daddy's buddy, Bill Clinton, will see that she has a reasonable amount of money, but probably not the $20 plus million that McConnell will raise. But Grimes cannot self-fund. Her candidacy, therefore, will siphon off Democratic dollars that are needed in other Senate races around the country. This may have the unintended consequence of giving Republicans the seats necessary to make McConnell majority leader.

Grimes's advantage: her youth and gender. The flip side of youth, however, is inexperience -- the perfect foil to McConnell's seniority.

This is a small, poor state, and Kentuckians are justifiably proud of the fact that the most important senator in the country represents Kentucky. Indeed, many would say that the two most powerful senators in the country both represent Kentucky.

The most tedious part about the Grimes candidacy is that we will have to listen, for months, to her prattle about the so-called Republican War on Women. Time to vote with our Lady Parts and all that.

Meanwhile, Obamacare is unraveling even before its implementation. And Obama has chosen to take a weak economy and further harm it by ratcheting up his War on Coal. Grimes should ask (former Congressman) Ben Chandler how that issue worked out. By taking on the coal industry just days before she announced, Obama has increased the number of Republicans who will vote fore McConnell in the eastern and western parts of the state. He has made her election less likely. Surely Grimes knows this; perhaps she hopes to perform well enough to clear a path not to Washington, but to the Governor's Mansion.