Bluegrass Poll: Gaining momentum, McConnell holds 4-point advantage over Grimes

Lexington Herald-Leader ^ | August 30, 2014 | Sam Youngman

[Republican Wildcat]

The re-election campaign of U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has gained momentum in the last month, propelled by huge leads over Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes in Western and Eastern Kentucky and among men, according to a new Bluegrass Poll.

With less than 10 weeks until Election Day, the poll of 569 likely voters shows McConnell with a 4-point lead over Grimes, up from a 2 point margin a month ago. McConnell now leads Grimes 46 percent to 42 percent...

[fieldmarshaldj]

Proof of how horrid Grimes and her candidacy is that she’s losing to a badly damaged and unpopular McConnell.

[elhombrelibre]

Empowering the Democrat party isn’t the answer to fixing the Republican party. Common sense is prevailing.

[cynwoody]

My advice to Kentucky voters: Vote against Harry Reid!

As for future Majority Leader McConnell, leave that for the next Senate to deal with!

Principles have no place in the voting booth. Only tactics!

[INVAR]

Principles have no place in the voting booth. Only tactics!

And that is EXACTLY why we are in the mess we are in today. Because for so many, expedience trumps principles - as if liberty was just some kind of stupid political game.

Well I vote principles.

As to the McConnell/Grimes match-up, I doubt the results. In W. KY there is not a single Mitch sign to be seen anywhere, just Alison signs and bumper stickers everywhere you look.

In addition, McConnell's radio and TV spots against Grimes are nowhere near as vitriolic and vicious as they were in the primary against Bevin, and his are as full of crap as hers are.

[cynwoody]

“McConnell sucks” is not a good enough reason to blow a potential Senate takeover.

[GeronL]

Principles have no place in the voting booth.

Worst thing I have ever heard. Principles are the ONLY thing worth voting for.

[cynwoody]

Worst thing I have ever heard. Principles are the ONLY thing worth voting for.

If principles lead to keeping Harry Reid in office, then principles are for children!

[fieldmarshaldj]

"Principles have no place in the voting booth."

Then you get what you vote for.

'Always vote for a principle, though you vote alone, and you may cherish the sweet reflection that your vote is never lost.' — John Quincy Adams

[cynwoody]

The fact remains, a vote for Grimes or for the Losertarian or whatever third-party loser or a non-vote is a vote to retain Harry Reid as Majority Leader and to advance Barack Obama’s agenda for the US.

[Republican Wildcat]

I completely disagree with the person you were responding to - but at the same time - your so-called “principles” are precisely why policies such as Obamacare are in place - not satisfied yet?

Do tell how McConnell’s ads against Bevin were “vicious and vitriolic” - they were pretty much written by Bevin himself due to his own behavior.

[wardaddy]

Oh bull

Count me now as one who has finally had enough of the GOPe bastards

But by all means...kennel up.

[Republican Wildcat]

Principles have no place in the voting booth. Only tactics!

Completely disagree and that's about the worst thing I've ever read. What would be the purpose of the tactics if not for principle? Principles are why I did not vote for McConnell in the primary, and likewise are the reason I will vote for him over Lundergan Grimes in the general.

[Republican Wildcat]

well if there’s no need for principle then why do we need to remove Harry Reid, or to stop Obama’s agenda?

[fieldmarshaldj]

The fact remains, a vote for an unprincipled power-hungry RINO establishment hack is a vote for the status quo.

[Political Junkie Too]

If principles lead to keeping Harry Reid in office, then principles are for children!

What do you expect from your representative if they have no guiding principles? When they betray you, what good will have come from putting them in office?

It's like what they say about the mistress who wants the man to leave his wife. She shouldn't be surprised when he eventually leaves her for another woman. He's already done it once before.

What will you do when McConnell eventually leaves you? What are your principles if you choose a man with no principles as your representative?

-PJ

[cynwoody]

Principles are why I did not vote for McConnell in the primary, and likewise are the reason I will vote for him over Lundergan Grimes in the general.

No argument there!

Elections are about outcomes. Sometimes you just have to hold your nose and vote for the best outcome.

The children, on the other hand, will stamp their feet and stay home or vote for the opposition, just because their guy lost the primary.

[Yosemitest]

Vote AGAINST the "Establishment Republican" !
They're WORSE than the 'Rat he's running against, because he's sold out conservatives, coming and going.
We can take out COMPROMISER McConnell this very election, and replace the 'RAT with a conservative next time around.
Compromisers ALWAYS LOSE !

"Establishment Republicans" lose everytime they're listened to.
They wouldn't care if they DO lose.
If they can't be in power, they don't want US in power.
It's just that simple.
It's WAR!

We will never unify under "Establishment Republicans" .
"Establishment Republicans" have more in common with the Democrats, than they do with Conservatives.
The weak candidates are "Establishment Republicans", weak on national security, amnesty for illegals, abortion, and government spending.
"Establishment Republicans" scream "COMPROMISE".
And people who study the Bible know that COMPROMISE almost always leads to destruction.
Someone once said [We're] 'Not victims of "the Establishment." '
I disagree.
I ask you again:

Who was it that dumped all those negative adds on Conservative Candidates in the primary?
Who was it that constantly battered each leading Conservative in the primary with an average of three to one negative ads against our real candidates?
Who's money was dumped against the conservative choices?

It WAS Mitt Romney, leader of the "Establishment Republicans"
and it WAS the "Establishment Republicans" who funded all those negative ads against Conservatives.

So conservatives, the BASE of the Republican Party, WERE ' victims of "the Establishment." '

These "Establishment Republicans" are being weeded out, one by one, and slowly but surely, the TEA Party is taking over.

"Establishment Republicans" Want to Redefine the Term "Conservative"

"DO CONSERVATIVES WANT TO WIN IN 2012 OR NOT?"

DO CONSERVATIVES "ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS" WANT TO WIN IN 2014 OR NOT?

Jack Kerwick wrote an article on May 24, 2011 titled The Tea Partier versus The Republican and he expressed some important issues that I agree with.

Thus far, the field of GOP presidential contenders, actual and potential, isn’t looking too terribly promising.

This, though, isn’t meant to suggest that any of the candidates, all things being equal, lack what it takes to insure
that Barack Obama never sees the light of a second term; nor is it the case that I find none of the candidates appealing.
Rather, I simply mean that at this juncture, the party faithful is far from unanimously energized over any of them.

It is true that it was the rapidity and aggressiveness with which President Obama proceeded to impose his perilous designs upon the country
that proved to be the final spark to ignite the Tea Party movement.
But the chain of events that lead to its emergence began long before Obama was elected.
That is, it was actually the disenchantment with the Republican Party under our “compassionate conservative” president, George W. Bush,
which overcame legions of conservatives that was the initial inspiration that gave rise to the Tea Party.

It is this frustration with the GOP’s betrayal of the values that it affirms that accounts for why the overwhelming majority
of those who associate with or otherwise sympathize with the Tea Party movement
refuse to explicitly or formally identify with the Republican Party.
And it is this frustration that informs the Tea Partiers’ threat to create a third party
in the event that the GOP continues business as usual.

If and when those conservatives and libertarians who compose the bulk of the Tea Party, decided that the Republican establishment
has yet to learn the lessons of ’06 and ’08, choose to follow through with their promise,
they will invariably be met by Republicans with two distinct but interrelated objections.

First,
they will be told that they are utopian, “purists” foolishly holding out for an “ideal” candidate.

Second, because virtually all members of the Tea Party would have otherwise voted Republican if not for this new third party,
they will be castigated for essentially giving elections away to Democrats.



Both of these criticisms are, at best, misplaced; at worst, they are just disingenuous.
At any rate, they are easily answerable.

Let’s begin with the argument against “purism.” To this line, two replies are in the coming.


No one, as far as I have ever been able to determine, refuses to vote for anyone who isn’t an ideal candidate.
Ideal candidates, by definition, don’t exist.
This, after all, is what makes them ideal.
This counter-objection alone suffices to expose the argument of the Anti-Purist as so much counterfeit.
But there is another consideration that militates decisively against it.

A Tea Partier who refrains from voting for a Republican candidate who shares few if any of his beliefs
can no more be accused of holding out for an ideal candidate
than can someone who refuses to marry a person with whom he has little to anything in common
be accused of holding out for an ideal spouse.
In other words, the object of the argument against purism is the most glaring of straw men:
“I will not vote for a thoroughly flawed candidate” is one thing;
“I will only vote for a perfect candidate” is something else entirely.



As for the second objection against the Tea Partier’s rejection of those Republican candidates who eschew his values and convictions,
it can be dispensed with just as effortlessly as the first.

Every election season—and at no time more so than this past season—Republicans pledge to “reform Washington,” “trim down” the federal government, and so forth.
Once, however, they get elected and they conduct themselves with none of the confidence and enthusiasm with which they expressed themselves on the campaign trail,
those who placed them in office are treated to one lecture after the other on the need for “compromise” and “patience.”

Well, when the Tea Partier’s impatience with establishment Republican candidates intimates a Democratic victory,
he can use this same line of reasoning against his Republican critics.
My dislike for the Democratic Party is second to none, he can insist.
But in order to advance in the long run my conservative or Constitutionalist values, it may be necessary to compromise some in the short term.

For example,

as Glenn Beck once correctly noted in an interview with Katie Couric,
had John McCain been elected in 2008, it is not at all improbable that, in the final analysis,
the country would have been worse off than it is under a President Obama.
McCain would have furthered the country’s leftward drift,
but because this movement would have been slower,
and because McCain is a Republican, it is not likely that the apparent awakening that occurred under Obama would have occurred under McCain.


It may be worth it, the Tea Partier can tell Republicans, for the GOP to lose some elections if it means that conservatives—and the country—will ultimately win.

If he didn’t know it before, the Tea Partier now knows that accepting short-term loss in exchange for long-term gain is the essence of compromise, the essence of politics.

Ironically, he can thank the Republican for impressing this so indelibly upon him.

I'm fresh out of "patience", and I'm not in the mood for "compromise".
"COMPROMISE" to me is a dirty word.
Let the RINO's compromise their values, with the conservatives, for a change.
Take a good long look at where "Establishment Republicans" ALWAYS take us.



The "Establishment Republicans" can GO TO HELL !

[anton]

The Norther Ky (Cincinnati) media is blanketed by ads. Its like the last week in a presidential race. Every local show, every break.

Ky is a traditional demorat state.

[INVAR]

A GOP Ruling Class Senate takeover is not a reason to vote for McConnell either.

Conservatism and the Constitution still loses, which is what happens when expedience trumps principles.