How Big Will The Anti-Red Wave Be?

Joe Cunningham (SC) & Amy McGrath (KY)-- their races will be the 1st reported. If they both win, the  Republicans will lose 60 seats

Next Tuesday we may have an idea how big the wave is going to be because of something that happens in South Carolina. SC-01 is, generally speaking, the coast-- not counting the stretch from Georgetown to Myrtle Beach and the North Carolina border. It includes most of Charleston (the white parts of the city), stretches down through Beaufort to Hilton Head and takes in a lump of inland country northwest of Charleston to Summerville and Moncks Corner as far north as Lake Moultrie. The PVI is R+10 but Trump (53.5%) didn't do as well as either McCain (56.1%) or Romney (58.3%). I'll guess it's the least Trumpified of the 6 red districts in the state. And the Republican candidate for Congress this cycle, Katie Arrington, is pure Trump. With Trump's help she ousted Mark Sanford in the GOP primary and now she has to face Democrat Joe Cunningham. People will still be voting in most of the country when South Carolina polls close on Tuesday. If Cunningham wins, it will signal a humongous Democratic wave is sweeping the country. Can he?

Well... as of the October 17 FEC reporting deadline he had outraged her $1,908,175 to $1,313,382 and outside spending has been modest on both sides. A very conservative 538 underestimates his chances, which are not great to start with.

In June, soon after Arrington beat Sanford 33,089 (50.6%) to 30,428 (46.5%), she was in a serious auto accident suffering a broken ribs and a back fracture that have kept her from vigorous campaigning. There hasn't been any public polling since the end of August when PPP found Arrington leading Cunningham 49-42%. What's changed since then? Cunningham has become much better known. And Trump has become more disgusting than ever. This week the Post And Courier reported that Sanford won't endorse Arrington. "Sanford’s silence," wrote Caitlin Byrd, "comes as Arrington’s race with Democrat Joe Cunningham is showing signs of being much closer than Republicans envisioned months ago, with the National Republican Congressional Committee on Monday sinking $87,000 into TV ads on her behalf.

The buy signals the race could be more competitive than initially thought, experts say, in a district traditionally considered “safe Republican.”

“She’s in a fight,” College of Charleston political scientist Jordan Ragusa said of Arrington. “She is still likely to win that fight, but it’s going to be a tough battle.”

...The fact the NRCC is investing at all in this race is raising eyebrows among political watchers.

If Arrington wins in an R+11 district it won't say anything at all about the rest of the night's results. If Cunningham wins, the GOP nationally should be on suicide watch. J.D. Scholten's district is also R+11. But the next bellwether seat that will probably be reporting is KY-06 (with an R+9 PVI), where Democrat Amy McGrath has outraised Republican incumbent Andy Barr $7,767,610 to $4,778,302 and has him on the ropes. Ryan's sleazoid SuperPAC has felt that it had to jump in to save his seat and has spent $3,237,558 smearing McGrath. The DCCC and Pelosi's PAC responded weakly with around $1.3 million. If Cunningham and McGrath both win, Republicans waiting on line to vote in Orange County and the Central Valley will stop waiting and start to drift home, understanding that they've lost the House-- by a lot. Cunningham and McGrath victories will signal that the pundits and pros had it all wrong again and that the Democrats won't be taking 25 seats by closer to three times that number!

So what happened to all that GOP enthusiasm because of Kavanaugh? It motivated more Democrats than Republicans. And Trump's rallies? They're  motivating more Democrats (and independents) than Republicans. If anything, the hate rallies are actually turning off mainstream Republicans! The frontlines are mow deep in the heart of Republican territory... like the aforementioned districts in South Carolina, Iowa and Kentucky. No, Democrats can't wage plausible battles against Mo Brooks or Rob Aderholt in Alabama or in the Florida, Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, serious fighting in those districts would be like Republicans trying to win inner city districts in Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Los Angeles and New York. Instead, there are no longer any safe GOP seats in California... and Orange County-- once the soul of the party-- is about to be free of Republicans completely. Washington state has 4 GOP-held seats. 3 of them are all but gone. Democrats-- if not the lame and short-sighted DCCC-- are fighting seriously for Amish country in Pennsylvania, for Wichita, Kansas, for severely gerrymandered Texas districts, for at-large seats in Alaska and Montana... even for seats in West Virginia.

It looks like this is the year that women take their revenge on the GOP for its anti-family agenda, its anti-education agenda, for its anti-women agenda, for its gun agenda, its pollution agenda, and for the divisiveness, bullying and immoral essence of its contemptible leader. Here's where they get pay-back for the enabling and the rubber stamp attitude just when a Congress with some guts and dignity is most demanded. You think Kavanaugh is going to help GOP incumbents with women in suburban districts.

And the #MAGAbomber Trump rally nut from Florida and the murderous #MAGAshooter in Pittsburgh... you think women appreciate that? Or independent voters. That was a last straw for many-- even in Republican strongholds in Utah, Kansas, North Carolina... where the party never expected to be forced to spend millions of Sheldon Adelson's dollars to defend incumbents in carefully gerrymandered seats Trump won on auto-pilot.

Writing for super-cautious RealClear Politics, Sean Trende reports the outdated conventional wisdom that even he doesn't believe: "The consensus view is that Democrats are favored to take the lower chamber. Analysts disagree on just how large a majority they are likely to win, and how likely that majority is. If you split the RealClearPolitics tossups in half, it results in Democrats gaining about 25 seats, for a narrow 220-215 majority. I tend to think that the tossups will break disproportionately toward Democrats, and see something more on the order of a 225-210 Democratic majority." It's hard to realistically see the Republicans with 200 seats.

He also admits that almost all their House polling comes from a gimmicky and totally unreliable source, the worst polling operation of the cycle-- sillier than GOP polling firm Rasmussen: "[M]ost of our House race polling has come from the New York Times, in partnership with Siena.  On the one hand, this is good, because without them we would have virtually no polling. On the other hand, polling is both an art and a science, and having a disproportionate amount of our data coming from a single view of what the electorate looks like increases the chances of" absurd assumptions and ridiculous mistakes. (My words, not his.)

Who’s Electable? Why Ask The DCCC? They’ve Been Getting It Wrong For A Solid Decade. They Have No Idea

Dan Sena-- lucky for all of us there's a wave coming

Over the weekend, a quartet of Washington Post reporters tried writing about some congressional races in America. The Post should probably stick to what they know about: crap inside the Beltway. There’s a new Democratic Party emerging,” wrote the quartet, “united over the most liberal policies in decades but sharply divided over which candidates to run against President Trump and Republicans in the midterms.” Somehow they neglected to frame their “analysis” in terms of the power struggle between progressives and the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- the New Dems and Blue Dogs and their allies at the DCCC.

If they spent more time outside the Beltway than inside it, they might not have written that “The party taking shape will challenge the GOP with a distinct populist tilt, marking a departure from the centrist views that had dominated during the era of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. This year’s candidates have largely endorsed universal health care, a $15 minimum wage, easing the financial burden for college students and tougher gun control.”

In reality, there are progressive candidates who do support that agenda, and conservative candidates-- many backed by the DCCC and groups allied with the DCCC like End Citizens United, No Labels, EMILY’s List, etc, who may mouth some of the principles but are not part of the progressive energy determined to enact the progressive agenda. And of course, “there is sharp disagreement as more than 1,100 candidates have filed, with disputes over tactics-- how to criticize Trump or how best to talk about issues-- and sparring over who should be the standard-bearers, either first-time hopefuls or experienced politicians.” Isn’t there always? Politicians and would-be politicians are usually about their own career trajectories to one extent of another. It’s not all that different this year. In many of the instances The Post uses to illustrate their theory, the disputes are between people, not necessarily ideas. Voters want to know what politicians propose to do for them, not about what they propose to do for themselves career wise.

In Kentucky, for example, a female fighter pilot is lashing out at Democratic leaders after they recruited a wealthy mayor for the race against a Republican congressman who has staunchly supported Trump’s agenda.

…The day after Trump was elected, Amy McGrath was dumbfounded.

“I woke up the next morning with a hole in my heart. I felt like, ‘What just happened? How did we get here?’” the former Marine Corps pilot recalled.

These days, McGrath is flummoxed by something else: the Democratic establishment, which she has accused of lining up against her candidacy.

Amid the distilleries and horse farms that dot a district stretching from the urban center of Lexington to rural areas, McGrath and five other Democrats have entered the race to challenge three-term Republican Rep. Garland “Andy” Barr.

Like so many others, McGrath was itching to do something after Trump won. So she moved back to Kentucky and ran in a district Trump won by 15 points. She became a national sensation when she released a slick launch video touting her time as a fighter pilot.

It wasn’t enough to satisfy party power brokers, most notably those at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

“Instead, they went out and recruited the mayor of Lexington to run against me,” said McGrath, 42. “I mean, it’s like, what are you guys doing?”

The mayor, Jim Gray, is a wealthy former construction executive with an ability to fund his own campaign. He also is a familiar name, losing to Sen. Rand Paul (R) in 2016, but carrying the 6th District. Gray also is openly gay, which he says is not an issue, even in this conservative area.

Gray, who launched his campaign months after McGrath, acknowledged that people at the DCCC “gave me some encouragement” to run. He noted the committee has not officially endorsed him. The DCCC did not comment.

To hear Gray and McGrath talk about issues is to hear echoing voices. Neither wants to go to Washington just to fight Trump; both see opportunities to work with him. Neither will commit to voting for Nancy Pelosi as House Democratic leader. Both are staunch defenders of the Affordable Care Act, though they stop short of embracing a single-payer health-care system.

So they have taken to highlighting their personal backgrounds in an effort to stand out ahead of the May 22 primary.

“I feel like what our country is experiencing today really calls on leadership, and it really calls on experience,” Gray said in an interview at a coffee shop in Lexington.

Gray, 64, repeatedly highlighted his tenure as mayor and his business accomplishments.

In a telephone interview, McGrath emphasized her unique background as an asset.

“We cannot as Democrats keep pinning our hopes on older, rich, white guys to save us,” she said. What Democrats need, she said, “is people from all walks of life.”

One woman described choosing a primary candidate as “hard and stressful.” Winning in November was on everyone’s mind.

“If somebody can give me polls and numbers and an idea of who can go against Barr and who’s really got the biggest chance of beating him, I would be comfortable with any” of the three leading candidates, said Cathie Griggs, 64, a retired speech therapist. “People want to vote now,” she added.

So what did The Post miss? McGrath and Gray-- an admitted Blue Dog-- are both conservative candidates. He has a record and electoral wins in the district behind him. She has a good video someone made for her that she proved utterly unable to follow up on with a decent presentation of anything resembling an inspiring agenda. Instead, she’s just a flaccid identity politics candidate. She’s as likely to come in third as she is to come in second in the primary. Reggie Thomas agrees with McGrath that it’s time to move beyond old rich white guys. So how about a popular black state senator? Besides, he’s afraid to say “single payer” or “Medicare for All,” just like the two white conservatives.

Indiana’s 2nd District

The question posed to three Democratic congressional candidates at a debate in South Bend was supposed to be a softball: “If you are not the winner of the Democratic primary, will you actively support the winner?”

Pat Hackett, a 58-year-old lawyer and first-time candidate seeking the seat held by three-term GOP Rep. Jackie Walorski, kept silent for 10 seconds before responding: “Yes, I’m a Democrat, and a Democrat is preferable to Jackie Walorski, but my statement shouldn’t be construed as it doesn’t matter. It matters enormously. I’m the Democrat on this stage.”

Her equivocation enraged fellow candidates and party officials in Indiana’s 2nd District, where six Democrats are seeking nomination in the May 8 primary.

Although party leaders see a prime opportunity to flip a GOP seat that has long been considered out of reach, energized liberals are making clear that they are not going to keep quiet and happily back a centrist, soft-edged candidate.

While party organizations have made no endorsement, the candidate with clear backing from the Democratic establishment is Mel Hall, a Methodist minister turned health-care executive who describes himself as a “ruthless pragmatist.”

“Certainly people talk about tweets, and he does create distractions, and I think there’s probably a slice of maybe the far left that do talk maybe a little more vociferously,” Hall, 64, said in an interview. “But what people in this district want are someone who shows up and gets something done.”

Hall also is facing competition from Yatish Joshi. The 67-year-old self-made immigrant business executive and local philanthropist has loaned his campaign $200,000 and is seeking to upend a national Democratic platform that he calls “obsolete.” He also openly resists a president he sees as rolling back American ideals. Three other Democrats will be on the ballot but have not mounted extensive campaigns.

On the issues, Hackett and Joshi want a “Medicare for All” single-payer health-care system, while Hall supports revising the Affordable Care Act and lowering the cost of prescription drugs and medical equipment. Hackett and Joshi call for free college and forgiving student debt, while Hall calls for refinancing existing debt and capping free tuition for wealthier households. And on gun control, all three candidates support banning high-capacity magazines and instituting universal background checks, but unlike the others, Hall stops short of supporting an assault weapons ban.

Hackett, who suggests censuring Trump, and Joshi argue that running an unabashedly liberal campaign will get a group of voters to the polls who tend to skip elections when their choices range from the political center to the hard right. But Democratic officials like Jason Critchlow, the St. Joseph County party chairman, fear Hackett is starting down a path that, should she win the nomination, could make it impossible for Democrats to oust Walorski.

“You have this sort of new breed of activist,” he said, adding, “for some reason, it’s very important to them that they have this enemy within--  not just Republicans and not just conservatives.”

Clearly, there are now two district wings-- a Democratic wing and a Republican wing-- the Democratic Party. Are the reconcilable. Only wave elects allow the DCCC to move their Republican-lite candidates into office. In the following midterm, Democratic votes notice they vote with the GOP and don’t bother going to the polls. And they lose. That’s what happened in the 2006 wave--lots of crap Blue Dogs and New Dems were swept into office. And in the next midterm, 2010, virtually all of them were defeated when turn out sank, primarily because Democratic enthusiasm was wiped out by these crap candidates from the Republican wing. Now Ben Ray Lujan, a moron without the capacity yo understand even basic abstracts, was appointed DCCC so Pelosi could tick off two identity politics boxes-- Hispanic and LGBTQ (albeit a closeted one)-- and he’s doing everything he can to replicate 2006, setting the Democrats up for a catastrophic 2022. Anything would be better for the establishment Dems than to see progressives get into power. Don’t be surprised to see the Congressional Progressive Cause, now basically little more than a subsidiary of the New Dems, vote en mass for Joe Crowley, ultra-corrupt Wall Street slime bucket and former New Dem chair as the next party leader (and Speaker).

The found a conservative moron in VA-10 to interview, someone solely capable of parroting banal DCCC/DLC/DNC talking points that have been proven wrong-- and disastrous-- for a solid decade. Listen to this fool say exactly what the careerist Beltway establishment trained him to say. Meet Bob Settle, an old retired gentleman with a 2-digit IQ who “held up a copy of two-term Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock’s latest newsletter, which he considered light on accomplishments. ‘I want a candidate who can beat her,’ he said at a recent meeting of local Democrats. And wouldn’t you know it, he’s all for the most conservative of the candidates, the one the DCCC is desperate to get the nomination.

His pick, in a field of seven, is state Sen. Jennifer T. Wexton, a former prosecutor with deep roots in Loudoun County. He likes that she is well-known. Wexton has the support of Gov. Ralph Northam as well as Democratic Reps. Gerald E. Connolly and A. Donald McEachin.

“You can be in favor of banning assault weapons, you can be in favor of universal health care, you can be in favor of everything in the world,” said Settle, 70, “but if you can’t beat Barbara Comstock, you’re not going to do any good.”

Wexton makes a succinct pitch about her experience as a legislator passing bills on day-care regulation, the opioid crisis and domestic violence, issues that appeal to suburban moms, who were key to Northam’s win.

“So why me? I have shown that I have what it takes to run and win challenging races in the district and then to govern once I get there,” she told three dozen Democrats at the recent committee meeting Settle attended.

But voters have plenty of choices­ in a district that includes suburbs of the nation’s capital and which Clinton won by 10 points. And the pressure is on to defeat Comstock, whom one nonpartisan analyst rated as the most vulnerable Republican incumbent.

Pennsylvania’s 5th District

John Nee, the local Democratic Party chairman, gave strict instructions to seven candidates for a newly drawn congressional seat: Introduce yourself, your background, and then tell us your top three issues.

The first response seemed predictable. “Pushing back against the Trump administration and the Republican Congress that has been enabling it,” said Mary Gay Scanlon, a lawyer, tapping into the anti-Trump energy of the 60 to 70 activists who trudged through a cold Sunday night to a township hall for a candidate forum.

What came next was less predictable. One by one, the remaining six candidates focused on key issues. Gun control ranked high. A couple chose creating a single-payer health-care system. Nearly all mentioned jobs and education.

No one else mentioned Trump.

In fact, throughout the 75-minute forum, the seven candidates-- only half the field-- largely ignored the elephant in the room. Democrats in this onetime GOP bastion-- where new liberal energy and a redrawn district has Democrats champing for victory-- have a baseline assumption that anyone running for office now despises Trump and will work to rein in his administration in Congress.

New York’s 19th District

Faced with seven candidates, Democratic voters in New York’s 19th Congressional District had one question: Who could win in November in this rural district south of Albany?

“Who can beat [John] Faso?” asked resident Dorothy Dow Crane, 73. “Any of them would be fine. It’s about who’s electable.”

At a crowded voter forum, there was little daylight between the candidates on issues. They favored a ban on assault weapons, reversing the Republican tax cuts and instituting Medicare for all, though they differed on how quickly such a monumental health-care change could occur.

Democratic candidates and voters were fed up with Trump, but months before the primary, few were focused on him. The president, the impetus for so many people entering the race, had faded into the background.

“I’ve said for the better part of a year that it’s not about Trump,” said Brian Flynn, a medical device company founder who entered the race in September. “Trump’s a symptom, not the cause.”

At Dietz Stadium Diner, two voters said excitedly that they’d just settled in the district from Brooklyn and were desperate for a Congress that could stop Trump.

“I worry about my grandchildren,” said Marilyn Ippolito, 71. “I don’t want them to die in a nuclear war.”

California’s 39th District

When Sam Jammal was done speaking, he put the mic down. Then, people stood up and cheered.

Jammal, one of six Democrats running in California’s 39th District, had just delivered an impassioned plea on behalf of undocumented immigrants-- a topic that energized the crowd at a Thursday candidate forum in Fullerton.

“If you’re eating a salad, that salad was picked by immigrants!” the attorney for technology and clean energy companies said, his voice rising as he began to speak over sustained applause. “We can’t just abandon immigrants because of a talking point in a campaign.”

Jammal is running for the seat that encompasses parts of Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties. At the forum, he and two other Democratic hopefuls toed the liberal line on every issue that came up, including health care, the environment, the Republican tax overhaul and protecting young undocumented immigrants. They opposed Trump on everything.

The race to succeed retiring Republican Rep. Edward R. Royce is one of Democrats’ best pickup opportunities this year. The first hurdle they must clear is a nonpartisan primary on June 5. The top two finishers, regardless of party affiliation, will advance to the general election.

“I want somebody who’s elected to stand up to Trump. Trump is a walking disaster,” said Julie Suchard of Placentia, a former Republican. “I can’t tell you how many times where I check my phone in the morning when I wake up, and it’s like, ‘Oh god, what did he tweet? What is he going to do to this country?’ ”

Tragically, the DCCC is determined to hand the nomination to the leaqsdt qualified candidate, not just the least qualified for CA-39, the lest qualified anywhere! It’s Gil Cisneros who only knows one thing about politics-- bribing people with the millions of dollars the unaccomplished lummox won in a lottery. He buys endorsements from dishonest members of Congress and from the shameless DCCC. Jammal, clearly would make an exceptional member of Congress. Cisneros just wants a business card that says he’s a congressman. The DCCC would rather have some no account conservative-- did I mention Cisneros is also a Republican pretending to be a Democrat? And from another district?-- than a progressive with ideas and energy. Ideas and energy-- that scares the hell out of the geriatric ward that some people call the sclerotic House Democratic leadership.

Lexington Mayor Jim Gray Jumps In Against Andy Barr... And Amy McGrath

See that video up top? Amy McGrath made a HUGE splash with that video-- at least as big as the splash Randy Bryce made with this one. The video got her almost a million and a half views on YouTube. And was entirely responsible for her raising $800,000-- the 2nd or 3rd biggest haul among Democratic congressional candidates last quarter. She wound up with an interview on Chelsea Handler's show and some more national exposure. But where Bryce's introduction video was a jumping off point that was a foundation that built a platform on which he shined and proved himself far better than the video, Amy's video was the high point of her campaign. She's wasn't ready for a national spotlight and her campaign stumbled... badly. Her second video attempted to replicate the excitement of the first... but it got less than a tenth of the views. Word on the street is that her fundraising has fallen way down this quarter too. She hasn't succeeded in making a compelling case for her candidacy. And this morning, something that started with so much promise hit an iceberg. Lexington's popular mayor, Jim Gray, announced he is running for the same congressional seat.

Being the mayor of the district's biggest population center-- Fayette County provides as many votes in congressional races as the other 18 counties in the district combined, especially in Democratic primaries-- is a major advantage for Gray. And having just come off a Senate race that pitted him against Rand Paul is a plus too. Although he lost statewide 1,090,151 (57.3%) to 813,222 (42.7%)-- outpolling Hillary by almost 200,000 votes and by 10 points-- he won KY-06. And, more important, he took Fayette County 82,401 (60.4%) to 54,064 (39.6%). He also won Franklin County 58.1% to 41.9% and Nicholas County more narrowly. Trump won KY-06 54.7% to 39.4% but there were thousands of voters who cast their ballots for Trump and then switched to Gray in this R+9 district. But before Gray can take on Republican Andy Barr, will he be able to beat McGrath? Every pro I spoke to this morning said, basically, "yes, hands down."

After months of will-he, won’t-he whisperings among Kentucky Democrats, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray made it official early Tuesday-- he’s running for Congress.

“I experienced the American Dream … but that American Dream is threatened...” Gray said as he announced his candidacy Tuesday morning in Berea. “This is why I’m running for Congress.”

Gray enters the race as the presumed favorite in a Democratic field that includes former Marine Corps fighter pilot Amy McGrath, state Sen. Reggie Thomas and perennial candidate Geoff Young.


...As the first openly gay candidate to run for statewide office in Kentucky, Gray won around 51 percent of the vote in Central Kentucky’s Sixth Congressional District during his failed 2016 bid to unseat U.S. Sen. Rand Paul. President Donald Trump won the district by 15 points.


Gray has the ability to self-finance a campaign, having spent $2.5 million of his own money over the course of his Senate campaign.

But he’s playing catch-up.

Bolstered by national media attention-- including an appearance on The Chelsea Handler show in Los Angeles-- McGrath had raised more than $800,000 and had $551,500 on hand in October.

“I love our chances if he gets in,” McGrath campaign manager Mark Nickolas said in a Nov. 21 Facebook post. “It’s a possibility that I’ve been planning for since word leaked in May that he was considering jumping in. If he does, it will be a rough and expensive primary.”

Gray’s announcement kicks off a tour of all 19 counties in the District over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday.

“I’ve talked to many people in this district. Many of them are mad as hell, many of them are scared as hell,” Gray said Tuesday morning. “That’s why I’m making this race.”

Is there an actual progressive in the race? Not in terms of national politics, although by "Kentucky standards," kind of both of them... in a centrist kind of way. McGrath's DCCC-style website lists no issues and no positions and no platform. It's just about who she, not about the voters. That's always the mark of a loser. Gray hasn't put up a website yet but his Senate website was as pathetic as McGrath's-- no issues, no platform, no nothin'. Unless there are some big changes, don't expect a Blue America endorsement in this race. Here he was at Fancy Farm last year:

We Have An Idea Who Amy McGrath Is Now. But What Will She Do For Kentuckians In Congress?

A lesbian friend of mine was as excited by the Amy McGrath video as I was-- no, more excited than I was. It's an inspiring video-- one of the best I've seen all season... on a par with Randy Bryce's introductory video. We covered it, enthusiasically, on Wednesday. I even got a friend I visited in the hospital to watch it so he would get a feel-good boost of the right kind of patriotism.

But my friend warned me that as inspiring as the short clip is-- and as sexy as she finds Amy-- there was something missing. Unlike Randy Bryce, Amy isn't offering much more than her inspirational life story. Many voters want more; elections are about them, not candidates' biographies. My infatuated friend said she smells "Blue Dog."

Today another friend-- you remember ValleyGirl?-- sent me a short note:

A great ad does not a great candidate make.

No news to you, I'm sure. But people on my mailing list are stumbling all over each other to praise Amy McGrath and donate money to her. wow! I guess all the adrenaline they felt watching those fighter jets got them hyped up.

But next up on youtube was this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVxsg_eW2P0

Dem Amy McGrath Stumbles Through CNN Interview, Won't Explain Position On Trump Or Single Payer

I've been trying to get in touch with Amy all week. I had some good leads but so far nothing has panned out. The CNN interview was bad enough but her her campaign website, which-- DCCC style-- has no issues or positions page, just bio stuff, turned me off a bit. What was great about Randy Bryce was that after the video, there was the reality of a dedicated, tried and tested progressive who understands the issues and knows how to discuss them. Maybe Amy's that too; I hope so.

Danielle Kutzelben interviewed her for NPR Thursday. Highlights:

How did you decide to run? Were you recruited, or was this purely your decision?

So this was purely my decision. There's been a lot of talk of Democratic Party recruitment, and I sort of laughed at that as I was going through the process of defining myself.

Because I say, the Democratic Party didn't recruit me; I recruited it. After the 2016 elections I think like a lot of Americans, we just took a step back and for me I just refocused and tried to figure out what just happened. Who are the candidates, [and] how did we get here?

And I realized that I had to do something. I felt like I had two choices: I could accept things the way they were, sort of politics as usual, or I could accept the responsibility for trying to change something, trying to do something. And this is my response.

So was the 2016 election the straw that broke the camel's back?

I think the 2016 election was not necessarily the straw that broke the camel's back.

I would say it was the start of real reflection for me as to, "Hey. This is something I think I want to do."

The straw that broke the camel's back for me was when the Republicans in the springtime were putting up their bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, this terrible bill that nobody liked, and they were pushing it through Congress without debate, without anybody knowing what was in the bill, just to prove a political point.

You talked about not being recruited, but Democrats are recruiting veterans and particularly women veterans for 2018. You check both of those boxes, so what do you think about that strategy?

I think it probably-- hopefully it will be effective.

I think, look. With regard to women, I'm not running as a woman-- "Vote for me!" But the fact of the matter is we have a very low percentage of women in our Legislature in this country compared to other nations in the western world.

Part of that problem is women don't run. We don't run for office. It's not that people are overwhelmingly voting against us. We just don't step up to the plate. So we have to do a better job of recruiting women and getting women to step up.

With regard to veterans, look. We have the fewest amount of veterans in our Legislature in places like Congress than ever before in history. [Note: She's close, in terms of modern Congresses, but according to the Congressional Research Service, at the start of this Congress, there was one more veteran member than there was at the start of the prior Congress.] And I feel this is a problem. Because veterans, they're a group of people who really put the country first. They put their lives on the line, they sacrifice, they know how to get a mission done.

So yes, I believe that strategy is a good one. Not because it's going to flip the House for Democrats-- obviously I'm a Democrat, and I'm happy for that, and I hope that happens. But I think that's good for America. We need more women, we need more veterans.

There's this divide among Democrats right now, between the far-left wing and centrists. How should the party bridge that divide? Do you think you could help?

I think-- it's not just Democrats that have a divide. I think you're seeing some real divides on the Republican side, too.

But there is a bit of a gap. So how I think I can deal with this or why I'm somebody who might be able to bridge that gap is I fully recognize that if it were not progressives-- I mean real progressives; radical people at the time-- in government, I would not have had a job for 20 years.

Because when I was 13, 14 years old, it was those progressives in government who said-- when most of Congress said, "Hey, women shouldn't fly in combat. Women shouldn't do that job,"-- it was those progressives who said, "No. We should have the best person doing those jobs, and our goal is to fight and win wars. So we should have the best person."

With regard to the more moderates, I have spent 20 years as a United States Marine. I'm a little more realistic when it comes to some of these foreign policy, defense policy issues, some of the things we do overseas. And so I really feel like I can connect to the more moderates.

I also consider myself a fiscal conservative. And what does that mean? To me, that means that we actually pay for the goods and services that we want government to provide. That's what that means.

In last year's primary were you a supporter of Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton?

I was a supporter of Hillary Clinton.

In your ad, you criticize Andy Barr for supporting the GOP health care bill. How would you want to see Obamacare changed? Is single-payer something you could support?

I like single-payer. So let me take this back. If we have the structure that we have right now. If we were to start over and have to start over from scratch, say this was 10 years ago-- I think we now know that single-payer would be the way to go.

But the reality is, we don't have that. We have a large infrastructure of health care in America. And maybe what we ought to do is try to shore up Obamacare and make it work. Make the holes that are in it-- and there are some real holes; no one has ever said the Affordable Care Act was perfect-- but let's not lie and say it's failing. It's not failing.

Many Kentuckians are benefiting from it. Even Republican Kentuckians are benefiting from the Affordable Care Act. Let's have a conversation about it and actually try to shore it up and fill the holes. We still have large swaths of the American public that still cannot afford health care, even under the Affordable Care Act.

Is she going to campaign by promising to sign on as a co-sponsor of John Conyers' Medicare-For-All bill? Probably not. Will she sign on if she's elected? I hope I get to ask her. Is she the DCCC candidate? Friends in Kentucky tell me she isn't and that they've been encouraging Lexington's popular mayor, Jim Gray, to run. Gray-- identity group is LGBT-- just ran for senator against Rand Paul, so his name recognition is very high. He did way better than Hillary did in KY-06. In fact, he beat Paul in three counties, including the big one-- Fayette, where the result was 82,407 (60.4%) to 54,064 (39.6%). He took Franklin 13,860 (58.1%) to 10,000 (41.9%) and won in Nicholas County 1,434 (51.2%) to 1,365 (48.8%). He out-performed Hillary in every county. The only one she won-- Fayette-- she under-performed Gray by a lot. She beat Trump 69,776 (51.2%) to 56,890 (41.8%). Over 10,000 Gray voters abstained in the presidential race.

Like I said Wednesday, in the kind of political environment we have now, this is probably a winnable seat. But it's a crowded primary already, even without Gray. The other candidates include state Senator Reggie Thomas, Colmon Eldridge-- a former staffer for former Governor Steve Beshear-- Leslie Combs, a former state rep from Pikeville, and frequent candidate Geoff Young. It will be interesting to see if, like Bryce in Wisconsin, Amy can keep getting better after the introductory video, which has already topped a million views! I'm still waiting for a call back.

Valley Girl followed up with some more insight this morning:

Contrast that sorry [Amy McGrath CNN] performance with Randy Bryce’s first appearance on national TV-- Jun 22, 2017, on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell:



Here’s the deal-- in his first appearance on national TV, Randy Bryce was exactly the same person as portrayed in his great campaign launch video. And, in every interview I’ve heard or watched, radio or TV, he remains the same person: honest, articulate, competent, graceful, no bullshit.

And Amy McGrath? Gag me with a spoon. Yes, her campaign launch video was great. Powerful. But it’s not enough to have a great campaign video, unless the video proves true over time. Did the Amy McGrath who appeared on CNN remotely resemble the Amy McGrath presented by Mark Putnam, a very skilled and talented ad creator, in her launch video? I’ll leave that for you to answer.

Some excellent news that just came in. Former Congresswoman Donna Edwards is helping advise Amy on her campaign so, if there were any early stumbles, they are likely to get straightened out quickly. "Amy," she told us, "is just the kind of no-nonsense, authentic public servant that we need in Congress. It may be a tough district, but she's the real deal."

Time For A Democrat To Win Another Congressional Seat In Kentucky

If the Democrats are going to win back another seat in Kentucky, it's likely to be the 6th district, which includes Lexington and Frankfort and is currently held by Andy Barr, who was first elected in 2012 by ousting conservative Blue Dog Ben Chandler. It's the only red district in the state that has a PVI that isn't double-digit Republican and the only red district in the state where Obama busted through 40%. Statewide, Trump beat Hillary 62.5% to 32.7% but in KY-06 it was a less humiliating loss, "only" 54.7% to 39.4%. When Barr first beat Chandler it was 153,221 (51%) to 141,436 (47%). Let's look at how the KY-06 counties voted in the presidential primaries last cycle:

• Anderson- Bernie- 1,649; Hillary- 1,132; Trumpanzee- 560
• Bath- Bernie- 641; Hillary- 628; Trumpanzee- 119
• Bourbon- Bernie- 1,087; Hillary- 1,1092; Trumpanzee- 253
• Clark- Bernie- 1,888; Hillary- 1,810; Trumpanzee- 797
• Estill- Bernie- 440; Hillary- 1446; Trumpanzee- 313
• Fayette- Bernie- 17,048; Hillary- 20,014; Trumpanzee- 3,727
• Fleming- Bernie- 806; Hillary- 627; Trumpanzee- 329
• Franklin- Bernie- 5,398; Hillary- 5,218; Trumpanzee- 582
• Harrison- Bernie- 1,059; Hillary- 886; Trumpanzee- 265
• Jessamine- Bernie- 2,113; Hillary- 1,875; Trumpanzee- 1,074
• Madison- Bernie- 4,385; Hillary- 3,441; Trumpanzee- 1,625
• Menifee- Bernie- 323; Hillary- 311; Trumpanzee- 96
• Montgomery- Bernie- 1,322; Hillary- 1,289; Trumpanzee- 447
• Nicholas- Bernie- 420; Hillary- 353; Trumpanzee- 59
• Powell- Bernie- 744; Hillary- 623; Trumpanzee- 259
• Robertson- Bernie- 177; Hillary- 95; Trumpanzee- 35
• Scott- Bernie- 2,394; Hillary- 2,505; Trumpanzee- 912
• Wolfe- Bernie- 499; Hillary- 414; Trumpanzee- 39
• Woodford- Bernie- 1,918; Hillary- 1,862; Trumpanzee- 562

That doesn't look like a hopelessly red district-- and it sure isn't Trump Country! So maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise that there are a whole lot of Democratic candidates competing for the party's nomination to take on Barr, pretty much a garden variety rubber stamp for all of Paul Ryan's anti-working family agenda. The stunning introductory video up top, by Obama ad man Mark Putnam, for Amy McGrath's campaign-- which was released yesterday and is the best political ad I've seen since Randy Bryce's video was released-- tells you something about McGrath's character, if not where she stands on specific policies. If a video can win a campaign, she'll be the next congressmember from KY-06. Barr foolishly tried to label her a carpetbagger even though she left Kentucky to serve in the military and teach at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.

The other candidates include state Senator Reggie Thomas, Colmon Eldridge-- a former staffer for former Governor Steve Beshear-- Leslie Combs, a former state rep from Pikeville, possibly Lexington Mayor Jim Gray and frequent candidate Geoff Young. I was checking on their publicly-stated positions on issues and couldn't find much. But I came across something interesting on Geoff Young's website. A little background. The DCCC is doing this "let's recruit Blue Dogs and other anti-Choice candidates" now and for some reason they're blaming me for "dividing" the party. No, really, one of them called up and screamed at me yesterday. I thought Young had an interesting way for a Democrat in a red state to speak about Choice-- Reducing Abortions:

The Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 made abortion legal during the first trimester of pregnancy. The so-called “Right-To-Life” movement arose in order to overturn that decision and make all abortions illegal after conception. In 1980, the GOP put a plank in their platform calling for a constitutional amendment that would make all abortions illegal forever. It’s still in their platform, and no Republican politician ever denounces that plank as immoral, which it is.

Here’s the tragedy: Making abortion illegal and hard for women to obtain actually raises the abortion rate. It means MORE abortions every year, not fewer. The proof comes from countries all over the world.


I recently debated Kent Ostrander, founder of the Family Foundation of Kentucky, on the topic of “Abortion and Public Policy.” I proved that Planned Parenthood and the Democratic Party have the right strategy to reduce the abortion rate, and that we are the true pro-life Americans. Here’s Part 1 of 4 parts on YouTube:



I call on every Kentuckian of good will:   If you deeply desire to see the number of abortions decrease, please join Planned Parenthood and the Democratic Party today and quit supporting “Right-To-Life” and the Republican Party. Planned Parenthood is the most effective abortion-preventing, abortion-reducing organization that exists. “Right-To-Life” and the GOP, on the other hand, are pushing laws that will actually increase the number of unborn babies who will be murdered every year if more Republicans get elected. In addition, making all abortions illegal will cause many more women to die every year in illegal abortion mills. “Right-To-Life” is wrong, while Planned Parenthood and the Democratic Party are right.

If you or your pastor feel I’m wrong about the issue of Planned Parenthood & abortion, please use the email message form on the “Join the team” page and try to change my mind. Better yet, if you belong to a church in the 6th District, please contact the campaign team and we’ll try to arrange for a debate on the issue. I love to spread the good news about how Planned Parenthood and the Democratic Party are helping to lower the abortion rate every day. Andy Barr claims to be “pro-life,” but he never has been and never will be as long as he stays in the GOP. The GOP is objectively pro-abortion, but Planned Parenthood and we strong Democrats are the true pro-life Americans.