Open Primaries. The GOP-E loves them. It lets Dems vote for your party's liberal candidates.
Can't really blame crossover Dems for the KY results. Grimes only had the most token of opposition, and she still pulled nearly 50% more votes than McConnell did.
See:
KY Results
Additionally, Dems were hoping for a Bevins win. Ostensibly it was because, they claimed, the best thing for KY would be if the Dems and Tea Party worked together to get rid of McConnell and then fought it out themselves (Katrina vanden Heuvel had a very pointed opinion piece on this several months back). However, the more realistic probability was because they saw Bevins as another Mourdock that they could cruise to victory over.
Thing is that Bevins proved them right - just too early in the cycle (not escaping the primaries). He was a crappy candidate who ran a crappy campaign, bungling the management of controversies like his signature on those bailout documents, his website indicating he'd gone to MIT and the whole cock-fighting rally thing.
The issue wasn't really the substance of those three things - it was the amateurish manner in which he and his campaign either stumbled into them, couldn't effectively respond to them, or both.
Heck, the way he's behaved since losing is a good indicator of how poor his chances were in the general election. He's refused to endorse McConnell. Which is fine. Except that, rather than manning up and saying that he can't endorse on principle and ideology, he's saying instead that the McConnell campaign roughed him up too much and hurt his feelings really bad.
I mean, what a frikkin' (insert synonym for "kitty cat" here). Does he really think that Grimes and the KY Democrat machine would have treated him any easier if he'd gotten the nomination? With control of the US Senate on the line?
I don't like McConnell much. Have said so in previous posts. But I know that he's going to fight like Hell to keep his seat. Even if Grimes wins, it ain't gonna be a walkover for her and it's going to take a LOT of money that will need to be drawn from other Dem candidates to do so. I think it's time that all the Bevins supporters got past the guy ...
McConnell won his last general election by 6% with a weak Dem candidate. That was before Mitch crowed about 'crushing conservatives'.
Hollywood, the Clintons, and Reid are pushing Grimes. She's got heavy hitters and lots of cash on her side.
If 20% of the conservatives stay home in November, I expect McConnell will lose. And conservatives have no reason to vote for a guy that provides procedural votes for Reid.
Personally, I'm not voting for Cornyn, even though he won his primary. That liberal bastard will have to win or lose without my vote.
Some percentage of conservatives are saying no to the liberal republican candidates.
/johnny