Posted on 05/29/2014 5:22:14 AM PDT by cotton1706
Add Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D) to the list of Democrats attacking Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for saying Obamacare should be repealed but Kentucky's Obamacare exchange, Kynect, should stay in place.
That statement by McConnell's campaign has sparked criticism by both the Lexington Herald Leader editorial board and Jonathan Hurst, the campaign manager for Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, who's running against McConnell.
Here's Beshear's response, passed to TPM on Wednesday in response to questions about McConnell's position:
Eliminating ACA means that folks with pre-existing conditions will struggle to find coverage, young adults won't be able to stay on their parents' coverage, women won't be treated equally by insurers and federal subsidies for Kentuckians will end. Senator McConnell either doesn't understand what the ACA is, or is just trying to mislead Kentucky families for his political benefit at their expense.
Beshear has been widely praised for setting up Kynect, which is often regarded as the model for state-based marketplaces created through Obamacare.
(Excerpt) Read more at talkingpointsmemo.com ...
Your problem is that even with all your yelling and arm waving, you aren't going to get conservatives to vote for your liberal republican candidates.
McConnell has supported Reid's agenda with critical procedural votes, and then had show votes for the rubes back home.
That doesn't work anymore.
The republican party can get conservative, or it can get destroyed. I don't care which.
/johnny
...”McConnell has provided critical procedural votes to advance Reid’s agenda. If the dem win in KY, not much changes for Reid. He still gets the votes he needs in the Senate.”...
I totally disagree with your analysis.
And he doesn't. In fact, he supplies Reid with critical procedural votes to advance Reid's agenda.
/johnny
Hopefully, he’ll lose in November.
___
... and be replaced by someone even worse. Future’s bleak regarding the KY senate race. No matter who wins the people lose.
...”Let me apologize to all Kentuckians in advance, but, I have had direct dealings with Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, he is the single most foolish of all the governors I have ever en-counted.
Gov. Steve Beshear has no grasp of reality, no ability, or so it seems, to grasp what is being said.”...
KY is an odd state. It’s population is very conservative, but it’s pattern is to elect Democrat Governor’s. It is the “machine.”
And it’s not a DEMOCRAT website either, so it’s no place for endorsing liberal democrats. Bash McConnell all you want, he deserves plenty of criticism but it disgusts me to see Grimes campaign HQ set up on this thread, that is what I find unacceptable. Are you gonna post a link so people can donate to her?
If democrats win a 2/3 to 80% majority in Congress like some people here seem to want, then it will be America that gets destroyed.
...”You aren’t “getting rid of liberal” if you are replacing him with someone MUCH MUCH more liberal who supports a liberal majority leader and liberal committee chairman, and who would vote for a Stalinist Supreme Court Justice given the chance. Obamacare passed by 1 vote, 1 goddamn vote, that is the danger that every single democrat traitor swine poses.
I question the sanity of any conservative who advocates the election of a democrat to the United States Senate and if were up to me such advocacy would not be allowed here, DU is the place to go for that. Say “I won’t support McConnell” fine, but openly calling for the election of a liberal pro-abortion, pro-gay, pro-tax, pro-Obama *itch to the Senate, for 6 years!??? SIX YEARS?! No. I can’t believe you guys are serious. This is textbook “cutting off your nose to spite your face”. “...
You said it perfectly! Thank you!
/johnny
The people I know will vote for McConnell. Even my son, who originally thought he would vote for Bevin, didn’t. A Rino is better than a socialist!
Do you also hope Grimes loses?
“No, it won’t, that’s insane non-logic. And you won’t like the next leader”
We can win the rest of our senate races, rid ourselves of McConnell
and be just fine. McConnell trashed and then bragged about crushing
conservatives in KY, you know, the same voters he will need to win.
Why would ANY KY conservative crawl over glass to vote for McConnell,
no matter how often McConnell sends out his Mini-Me, Rand Paul, to
prop him up?
The answer is they won’t. Nor should they.
...”The republican party can get conservative, or it can get destroyed. I don’t care which.”...
Well, Johnny...The only thing I can say is that you should care about how a more Conservative America comes about, because there are despots in every situation and the “destruction” option usually does not end well when the despots end up gaining the power they lust for.
Last time I checked no one had to “crawl over glass” in order to go vote, I have to walk one block from my home.
Running as a liberal republican needs to be a political kiss of death in a general election.
/johnny
How does it feel being having the same wish as Barack Obama and Harry Reid?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
REPLY TO: Wimpy.... Oops, I mean Impy: You didn’t ask me, but it feels damn good. When I was a kid in school, I loved seeing the playground bully get his a** kicked by anybody who could do it. Any political bully who vows to crush members of his Party who are not a Beltway political whore like him, deserves his a** kicked; even if the job is done by someone I don’t like. DITCH MITCH!!!
McConnell is likely to lose this election. It won't take many conservatives leaving that race on the ballot blank to sink him.
/johnny
...”and be replaced by someone even worse. Future’s bleak regarding the KY senate race. No matter who wins the people lose.”...
That seems to be true, no matter what “we the people” do. It is what happens under an out of control big central government. I think the states who elect conservative governor’s are the smartest and respond the best to their people.
/johnny
“My goal is to make the US Senate a more conservative body.”
Bulfeathers. Your goal is to show what a big fellow you are and how “pure” your conservatism is. If you wanted the Senate to be a more conservative body you wouldn’t want to replace a Senator with a career ACU rating of above 90 (over 30 years, mind you; it’s been even higher the past few years) with a liberal Democrat who will compile at best an ACU rating of 10. And we’re not talking about a two-year term, either; Allison Lundergan Grimes (or Grimey, as she prefers to be called) would be elected to a six-year term, and given the she’s a young, attractive female, and Kentucky likes its incumbents, Grimey would have a good shot of being reelected in 2020—remember, Landrieu, Lincoln and McCaskill all were reelected to the Senate (McCaskill won in 2006 in part because Missouri conservatives wanted to “teach Jim Talent a lesson”; Talent was conservative, but not perfect), and they got 6 years of an ultraliberal voting record, a filibuster-proof Democrat majority for over a year, Obamacare being shoved down our throats thanks to her vote, etc., and then couldn’t even get rid of her in 2012 because they nominated Akin and he went off about “legitimate rape” and then refused to step aside for a candidate who could win, so they’re stuck with her for 6 more years). Having KY, one of our more conservative states, sending a liberal Democrat to the Senate for 6, or maybe 12+, years will not result in a more conservative Senate.
As for whether we can win another Senate seat to withstand a loss in KY and still get a Senate majority, I agree with you, we can get to 51+ seats without McConnell. But with Grimey in that KY seat, it would make it that much more difficult to retain a Senate majority after the 2016 elections, in which the GOP will have a far greater number of vulnerable seats than will the Democrats. I would like for the GOP to have 54 Senators after this November in order to have a sufficient cushion to withstand likely losses in 2016; with Grimey in there for 6 years, it makes it more likely than not that the Democrats will control the Senate after 2016. That would mean that the Republican Senate leader that replaces McConnell (likely Cornyn, who is no more conservative or steel-spined than McConnell, but maybe someone better) will likely be minority leade after 2016, and would lead a slight majority after 2018, which is not conducive to advancing conservative legislation.
The Republican leader in the Senate always will be disappointing, because it is exceedingly difficult to get any legislation approved in the Senate without 60 votes, and impossibly to get anything done when in the minority. You’re correct that we might get a more conservative leader than McConnell were Grimey to defeat him, but Cornyn would have the upper hand in the contest (let’s put it this way: if conservatives have the votes to elect a 100% conservative over Cornyn as leader in January 2017, they would have the votes to replace McConnell (who has more baggage than Cornyn) with a 100% conservative), and if Cornyn wins he might stay as leader for a decade, while McConnell wouldn’t stay as leader for that much longer. And getting a more conservative leader may not change things that much, given that Bob Dole was more conservative than Howard Baker, Trent Lott was more conservative than Dole, Bill Frist was more conservative than Lott, and McConnell was more conservative than Frist.
So think about it, and see whether you still conclude that t is better to elect Grimey than to reelect McConnell.
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