Last updated on June 6th, 2014 at 12:44 am
Just hours after a rousing primary victory speech, an unrelenting Alison Lundergan Grimes (D-KY) is making her first general election stop in Beattyville — the very town where Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced to a surprised constituency that it is “not my job” to bring jobs to Kentucky — at the same time as she releases her first general election ad.
In the ad, Grimes destroyed McConnell’s single biggest campaign strategy against her, his attempts to tie her to Obama, by promising, “No matter who the president is, I won’t answer to them, I’ll only answer to you.”
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Grimes’ promise hangs in the air after the words, because this is the opposite of what Mitch McConnell has done for Kentuckians. McConnell has been far too busy trying to destroy Obama for his party masters, a task that has required he sabotage Democratic attempts to recover from the economic collapse of 2008, to do any actual work for the people.
Watch here:
Hi, I’m Alison Lundergan Grimes and I wanted to take a moment to talk with you about why I’m running for senate.
This is a frustrating time in our country. The economy is still struggling, people are working harder for less and here in Kentucky, we feel it more than most.
And it seems no matter how many elections we have, nothing gets better in Washington. It only gets worse.
A lot of that is because of the people at the top in both political parties. If we keep sending them back, nothing will change.
I’m running because I believe we need a senator who puts partisanship aside … and works with both Democrats and Republicans to do what’s right for Kentucky and for our country.
And no matter who the president is, I won’t answer to them. I’ll only answer to you.
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.
It can all start here.
So kicks off a general election tilt that some say will cost $100 million, with a McConnell supporting PAC, “Kentuckians for Strong Leadership”, saying it would spend $575,000 on attacking Alison Lundergan Grimes in TV ads alone, according to the Courier Journal.
Grimes isn’t going to let Mitch McConnell get away with projecting what he has been doing to Kentuckians for 30 years — that is, putting his party and his personal interests before them. Ever since Obama was elected, McConnell vowed to make the President a one term president. This was his only goal; not legislating, not creating jobs for the people, not answering to Kentuckians.
Nope. All Mitch McConnell wanted to do was carry out the jihad his party had on Obama’s head. McConnell is a party man, someone who answers to the big money running the GOP. He is the establishment. He’s making his millions off of his position, and that is all he seems to prioritize—the continuation of his own privilege.
And again last night in his victory speech, McConnell promised to bring Obama down (this is McConnell’s one job and he has failed at it repeatedly) and then tried to tie Grimes to Obama and Obamacare, playing on the fact that Kentuckians really like Kynect so long as no one calls it Obamacare (it’s the same thing). How disingenuous can a person be? It’s only Kentuckians’ healthcare, so no biggie for McConnell to play around with apparently.
Of course he accuses Miss Alison of doing what he is doing – being a puppet for the party. But Grimes doesn’t have the track record of a party puppet. McConnell does.
Grimes wants this. She’s full of energy and ideas, and a clear love for Kentucky. You get the sense watching her speak that she has been really disappointed with McConnell, and she wants to do things differently. Sure, all politicians say that, but after 30 years of McConnell’s selfishness, it seems like anyone who cares about Kentuckians would be rooting for change.
Alison will be meeting with local workers at a mom-and-pop hardware store in Lee County today as well.
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