UPDATE Below
If Kentucky Democrats had written a specific plan of action to ensure that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell would win re-election this year despite even the most complete Democratic tsunami that swept every other republican from office, it would look pretty much exactly like the clusterfuck we've got right now.
- Discourage, intimidate, bribe or blackmail every well-known and well-liked Democratic official in the state from entering the Senate race.
- Encourage half-a-dozen losers, no-hopers, perennial candidates, clueless novices and who-dats to file for the race.
- Persuade the single most reviled politician in the state to run for the Democratic nomination, although he is a long-time donor to republicans and BFF to Mitch himself.
- When a strong, viable, uncontrolled candidate emerges, enlist national power-brokers to help force him to drop out.
- Plant multiple stories on both progressive and wingnut state political blogs exaggerating the BFF's personal fortune and statewide popularity.
- Spread rumors emphasizing the naivete, incompetence and general lameness of the six also-rans.
So here we are. Not a single Democratic office-holder, past or present, is running for Mitch's seat. Six of the eight candidates are unknowns, perennial losers or cruel jokes. Marine Lt. Col. Andrew Horne dropped out under pressure from Governor Beshear and DSCC chair Chuck Schumer.
And Bruce Lunsford - Criminal, Democratic Traitor, $40,000+ Donor to Republicans, and Best Friend Forever to Mitch McConnell - is, six weeks before the primary, the presumptive democratic nominee to challenge McConnell.
It is a tribute to the utter through-the-looking-glass nature of the Democratic clusterfuck that it is necessary to debunk the propaganda that Lunsford is a viable candidate.
Bruce has spent the last five years piling up such a record of supporting republicans and attacking democrats that Mitch won't have to film a single ad against him; he'll just rerun clips from Bruce's previous campaigns.
If Mitch wins by less than 20 points, it'll be because Democrats finally remembered how to try to rig an election.
Page One Kentucky's posts on Lunsford's inevitable win in the primary and loss in the general.
Page One Kentucky's posts on Greg Fischer's lame campaign and missed opportunities.
BlueGrassRoots' posts on why Greg Fischer is a better choice than Lunsford.
UPDATE, 7:27 p.m.: Meanwhile, the national Senate electoral picture is shaping up as a rout for Democrats, who have recruited strong challengers just about everywhere. Everywhere except here. Memo to the Kentucky Democratic Party: next time New Yorker Schumer comes calling, beware Yankees bearing empty promises.
Cross-posted at Blue in the Bluegrass.
