Matt Gunterman November 25th, 2007
This week in the Kentucky blogosphere, mainly on the left but also on the right, controversy erupted around the political jockeying that’s taking place at this very moment to become the Democratic candidate to challenge Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) in 2008.
Whatever the behind-the-scenes reality, appearances are that some people with power and influence in Democratic circles in the state and national party and the state and national blogosphere are lining up behind State Auditor Crit Luallen (D) in an attempt to muscle out other potential candidates from a Democratic primary, namely Attorney General Greg Stumbo (D) and Lt. Col. Andrew Horne (D).
As one insider told me in a Friday-night conversation, it’s generally understood that a few Luallen supporters are out there making “assholes” of themselves and in the process, in my opinion, are doing a disservice to their favored candidate among the state’s grassroots.
So, in the context of the workings of these aforementioned and institutionally recognized assholes, came earlier this week the rather odd coincidence that, when reporting on the freshly released and newsworthily dismal approval ratings of Sen. McConnell, national bloggers Kos of Daily Kos and Jonathan Singer of MyDD, simultaneously chose to highlight the draft movement for Crit Luallen while entirely ignoring the far more official candidacy of Greg Stumbo and the strong grassroots movement to draft Andrew Horne.
Again, whatever the reality, it very much appeared that Kos and Singer were participating in a coordinated effort to paint Stumbo and Horne out of the picture.
Add to the Kos and Singer episode the fact that Liz Fossett, a northern Kentucky native and student at Georgetown University who is coordinator of the Draft Crit website, appears to have been participating in a trolling operation that targeted the comments sections of neutral or non-Crit aligned blogs using the handles Kim, Katie, and Kati.
The principle outlets were this blog, PageOneKentucky, BlueGrassRoots, and Rural Democrat. The principle targets of the trash talking were Andrew Horne and Joe Sonka of BlueGrassRoots and DitchMitchKY, who was accused of being a “bought” blogger.
Now, trolling and vindictiveness in the comments of blogs has been with us since the beginning and I predict it will be with us until the end, but if you are a person leading a draft movement for a candidate, it’s wisest not to participate in that behavior.
When confronted with the evidence of the trolling efforts, Ms. Fossett wrote a mea culpa of sorts in a diary at BlueGrassRoots. While Ms. Fossett admits that the various inflammatory comments did come from a single IP address that is a computer in her family’s home in northern Kentucky, she denies that she wrote the comments. Instead, it is her contention that other people in this household participated in the digital flogging. I myself find this scenario difficult to believe.
I personally want to say that I like and respect all the potential Democratic candidates for this race. I deeply admire the fight within and political conviction of Greg Stumbo and am thankful for the personal encouragement he gave him in my own campaign for county judge/executive in 2006. For me Stumbo appeals to my working class roots, and I believe he has a strong and guiding sense of fairness.
I have never met Andrew Horne in person, but I have many good friends who are his die-hard supporters. Many people in his extended political network have helped in nurturing this blog along and have aided efforts across the state to highlight the miserable record of Mitch McConnell.
I met Crit Luallen at Fancy Farm this August, where she gave two invigorating and rousing speeches, one at the Democratic breakfast and the other on stage at the picnic itself.
All three of these people would make fine candidates against Sen. McConnell.
I believe that if one looks at the field objectively and takes into consideration what is likely to be the political environment and national mood of 2008, then one is forced to admit that, on the whole, none of these candidates stands measurably above the rest in his or her potential against McConnell.
Each has his or her strengths and, likewise, weaknesses. Yet, there are examples from 2006 of Democrats very much like Stumbo, Horne, and Luallen all defeating Republican incumbents in the Senate. In Rhode Island former state attorney general Sheldon Whitehouse (D), whose tenure in that office had not been uncontroversial, defeated Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R). In Virginia former Marine Jim Webb (D), who had never before held elected office, took down George Allen (R), and in Missouri state auditor Claire McCaskill (D) defeated Jim Talent (R).
While none of our potential Democratic candidates in Kentucky are perfect, it’s important to keep in mind that not even the perfect candidate is guaranteed to beat Mitch McConnell, who himself is about as far from perfect as a human being can be.
We aren’t striving for perfection in our candidate. We’re striving to find a candidate and a message that we can rally 50 percent plus one of the voters around on November 4, 2008.
I see no problems if all three candidates run. I think the eventual nominee would be stronger for having gone through a competitive, issue-based primary.
Kentucky Democrats have proven over the course of the last two years that they can indeed run against one another in primaries and rally around the eventual winners.
Horne and his supporters were enthusiastic supporters of Rep. John Yarmuth (D) in November 2006. The 2007 Democratic gubernatorial primary was generally well behaved, and Stumbo was gracious in coming up short of victory there. For Luallen, having to run a competitive statewide primary would help her demonstrate that she can campaign hard to corners of the grassroots that see her 2003 effort as weak and her 2007 contest as far from baptism-by-fire.
In the end it will be much easier for Kentucky Democrats of every stripe to rally around the eventual nominee if each knows his or her candidate was beaten fair and square at the ballot box. It does more harm than good to pressure potential candidates out of the Democratic primary because the supporters of those candidates would rightly feel cheated.
They would rightly feel cheated because allowing that to happen would be an example of Democrats with much individual power and influence stopping Democrats with little individual power and influence from exercising what little power and influence they do have. For the latter category, the ballot box serves as their chief means to express political will.
It’s naïve to think that people with power and influence will ever stop trying to use their advantages to game the system, but the rest of us can better organize to resist them.
And that’s what’s going on.
