Don't Look to Dr. Dan to Take Senate Seat for Dems

Let's deconstruct The Hill's reality-avoiding piece on Kentucky's 2010 Senate race.

Four years after coming a whisker away from scoring the upset of the cycle, Kentucky Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo (D) is contemplating a rematch against Sen. Jim Bunning (R).

Mongiardo ran surprisingly close to Bunning in 2004, leading on Election night in a Republican-friendly year in a Republican-heavy state with still-popular President Bush atop the ticket. In the end, Bunning pulled out a narrow 23,000-vote victory for a second term, but the tightness of the contest put a target squarely on the Republican's back.

Given the overwhelming evidence that year of Bunning's dementia, Mongiardo should have won in a landslide. That Dr. Dan actually managed to lose to a senile incompetent who is the laughing-stock of Kentucky politics is proof of Mongiardo's weakness.

"I got involved in politics out of frustration for where healthcare was headed. And that will largely determine what I do and where I go," Mongiardo said. "It's interesting how the stars are lining up right now with [President-elect] Obama and the incoming administration talking about reforming healthcare."

Check a calendar. Obama will be signing healthcare reform by spring - a good 18 months before the 2010 election. Is Mongiardo planning to run against Obama's healthcare reform?

In Mongiardo's view, Bunning's standing in the state has changed little since the last election, largely because the Kentucky Republican has stayed out of the spotlight.

"In the end, people in the state of Kentucky are going to see there are two types of politicians: Those that do no harm, and he's been one of those, and those that do something, whether it's harmful or beneficial," Mongiardo said of Bunning. "Much to his credit, he hasn't done anything to harm the state."

No, Bunning's not doing much - other than vote constantly to support Smirky/Darth-McConnell policies that eliminate Kentucky jobs and foreclose Kentucky homes and deny health care to sick Kentuckians and send Kentucky's young people to Iraq to die. Apparently that doesn't bother Mongiardo much.

After his close call in 2004, Mongiardo won election as lieutenant governor alongside Gov. Steve Beshear (D). Mongiardo said he has discussed the possibility of running for Senate with Beshear, though he has yet to talk with incoming Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chairman Robert Menendez (N.J.).
Menendez's involvement in the race could be crucial to avoiding a nasty primary. In addition to Mongiardo, Attorney General Jack Conway (D) and Auditor Crit Luallen (D) have been mentioned as possible candidates. All three have won statewide elections, though Mongiardo stresses the eventual nominee will need to concentrate on fundraising.

Oh, yeah, getting the head of the NSCC to force out the best candidate in favor of an establishment DINO worked like a charm this year - we won't soon forget Bruce Lunsford's world-shaking victory over Mitch McConnell.)

"About the only thing I would change [from the 2004 race] is the ability to fundraise. In Kentucky, it's just very difficult to raise the money inside the borders of the state," Mongiardo said. "We're just not a very wealthy state."

Hey, Dan - guess who some of the biggest and richest Democratic fundraisers are? Gays. You know, the same homos you permanently antagonized in 2004 by sponsoring Kentucky's constitutional amendment promoting gay hatred.

Democrat Dan Mongiardo earned the everlasting enmity of thousands of Kentucky Democrats in 2004 when he sponsored the anti-gay marriage amendment to the Kentucky Constitution. Keep in mind he did so months AFTER his fellow Democratic Senator Ernesto Scorsone had come out as gay.

As Page One Kentucky put it:

Known homophobe and gay panicked (beyond Senate Bill 245, pressuring legislators to sign pledges that they would never support gay marriage but that they, themselves, are not gay) Lt. Governor Daniel Mongiardo did an interview with The Hill today.

SNIP

We’re wondering: If you get into politics in an attempt to save health care, why the heck meddle with gay-hating? And why continually press the issue?

The 2010 Democratic primary for Bunning's Senate seat is going to be crowded. In addition to Mongiardo and Conway (no, Crit Luallen is not going to run), Jimbo's vulnerability is going to draw every bored Democrat in the state. It's even possible that 2009's economic catastrophe will reveal a candidate stronger than Conway.

But Dan Mongiardo isn't it.

Cross-posted at Watching Those We Chose.