Kentucky's Next Senator Will Be Blue

UPDATE, 6:45 a.m.: The endorsements have already started.

Meet the next U.S. Senator from Kentucky, Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway:



Conway's from Louisville, and Louisville politicians traditionally have a difficult time winning statewide office in Kentucky. In fact, the last one was 25 years ago, when the Jefferson County Judge-Executive won a U.S. Senate seat. He was a republican, guy name of Mitch McConnell.

In 1984, he ran against incumbent Sen. Walter Huddleston (D-Ky.), trying to become the first Republican to win statewide office in Kentucky since 1968. He ran a famous series of ads showing bloodhounds sniffing around the state looking for Huddleston to make fun of Huddleston for missing votes while in Congress. McConnell won by four-tenths of a percentage point.(2) He was the only Republican challenger to beat a Democratic incumbent that year.

I seriously doubt Bunning's going to be the only repug incumbent to fall to a Democratic challenger next year, but just to be safe, maybe Conway should cut an ad showing nursing home attendants running through the halls of the Senate trying to corral Senator Non Compos Mentis.

Media Czech's rubbing it in:

We don't need a Blue Dog to beat Jim Bunning. Jack Conway is a progressive Democrat with integrity that can whip Jim Bunning any day of the week.

But let's say that KY Republicans like Mitch McConnell are able to successfully force Bunning out of the race and replace him with the much more formidable KY Sec. of State Trey Grayson. Even in this scenario, the PPP poll shows Jack Conway beating Grayson by 4 points. Mongiardo? He loses to Grayson by 4 points.

Again: we don't have to settle for a conservative Blue Dog in this race. We have Jack Conway.

Kentucky progressives are already stepping up and showing that we don't have to settle for the lesser of two evils in this race. The Facebook group I started "Kentuckians Against Homophobia, Mountaintop Removal, and Dan Mongiardo" has more members than the Mongiardo for Senate Facebook group. We know that Bunning is vulnerable, and we don't have to settle for another Ben Nelson or Blanche Lincoln.
Please check out Jack Conway's campaign website, and please consider throwing some turkee his way. We have a great candidate with a great shot of taking another big seat away from the "Party of No" in November 2010.

(also, please join the Jack Conway for U.S. Senate 2010 Facebook group!!!)

I'm not completely convinced that Jack Conway is the progressive Media Czech claims he is, mostly because his record is thin and his jihad against cyber crime gives me the First Amendment willies. However, he's certainly far more progressive than Mongiardo and Ben Chandler, if not as progressive as John Yarmuth.

Page One Kentucky, meanwhile, compares and contrasts Conway's video announcement with Mongiardo's, and reminds us just how much of a scumbucket our only Lieutenant Governor really is:

Oh, don’t forget that fancy time in 2004 when Daniel Mongiardo stood behind then-Senator Ernesto Scorsone, pointing and laughing, as Scorsone spoke passionately against Senate Hate Bill 245. See the video evidence by clicking here.

The proudly liberal Scorsone, Kentucky's only openly-gay legislator and now its only openly-gay Circuit Court Judge, has more genuinely progressive integrity in one fingernail than Dan Mongiardo could ever hope to acquire in a lifetime of penitent service.

Fun historical fact: In 1998, when Bunning first ran for the seat vacated by retiring Democratic Party Icon Wendell Ford, his Democratic opponent was 6th District Congressman Scotty Baesler. The two state senators who ran for Baesler's seat were Scorsone and future corrupt and disgraced governor Ernie Fletcher. Dirty Ernie won by deploying a gay-hating whisper campaign against Scorsone.

Thus Conway beating homophobe Mongiardo for the right to take Ford's seat back from Bunning will be karmic justice of a kind.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....