She's just an actress. She's too liberal and she's wasting her time. She could never handle the seniority in the U.S. Senate
Does the Senate Minority Leader hear the words that are coming out of his mouth? Going to fight for Kentucky? Nope, he's not but I sure am!
Remember back in November 2004, when then-Republican U.S. Senate candidate John Thune defeated then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle for re-election?
(Let me know if you can't access the video. It hosted via C-SPAN)
Here's Senator Thune in his re-election victory speech in 2010:
Well, I think it's about time we start getting some payback and give the GOP a taste of their own medicine, considering the party's credibility continues to erode every single day that passes since President Obama's re-election.
And it starts by defeating Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. This time, we will defeat McConnell by doing more than just wipe him out of the U.S. Senate: We will get the Tea Party fired up and then we will debate them out of the dialog so then they have no voice.
Obviously, it starts by electing a Democrat in Kentucky. So far, no one has really stepped up to the plate and taken a stand in Kentucky than actress Ashley Judd, whom a number of you guys know as a real fighter and a real qualified progressive Democrat. If we have Elizabeth Warren, we'll have another one in Judd so we better get fired up if she runs. If she does, she's going to kick McConnell's ass in all the debates and he's not going to like it.
Here's an article by Daily Beast that confirms why an Ashley Judd candidacy would really shake up Kentucky's political base and the Democratic Party in the state:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/...
The McConnell campaign has already launched attacks against the actress as too liberal, an Obama disciple, and anti-coal. But Judd could prevail using her great asset—a spiritual connection with Kentucky basketball, says former state treasurer Jonathan Miller.
All politics isn’t local. It’s far more intimate. Politics is rip-off-the-bandage emotion. It’s high school melodrama on HGH.
Especially here in the South, all politics is personal.
Simple human nature may best explain why the prospect of actress Ashley Judd disrupting the otherwise inevitable reelection of U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has provoked the ire of so much of Kentucky’s political chattering class. Consultants whom Judd hasn’t consulted call her potential bid a “catastrophe” and a “fantasy.” Political wags who haven’t been granted an audience term her record exploitable as “too liberal for Kentucky.” Big donors whom she hasn’t called complain about not being wooed.
Of course, a Judd campaign would ultimately require the ego-stroking and back-scratching that bind the fabric of our personal brand of politics.
But it’s a different character of human connection that provides the actress with a legitimate chance to topple the state’s most disciplined and effective political strategist of our era. And it’s why the famously sober and calculating McConnell machine is acting so concerned.
Did you hear that? The McConnell machine is so concerned. Who knew that an actress could have the potential to really start adding McConnell's feet to the fire and actually make the race a closely watched one?
The senator’s allies have telegraphed this kind of campaign against Judd through an Internet ad depicting the actress as “an Obama-following, radical Hollywood liberal” who claims Tennessee as her home.
The ad is clever, funny, and effective. But its über-early broadcast—along with the release of a handful of statistically challenged polls by the senator’s allies—portend a case of high anxiety among Team McConnell. As my poker coach and New School political-science professor Jeff Smith has noted, acting strong at the table is the surest sign of a weak hand.
That’s because it’s not 1984 anymore. And in today’s Orwellian dystopia that is official Washington, Mitch McConnell is exhibit A of our deeply unpopular, polarized, and paralyzed system of government.
With congressional approval at all-time lows, slightly lower than Brussels sprouts, and only a tad higher than root canals—and especially in a state that was anti-Washington well before it was cool—who is better positioned to seize this deeply ingrained passion than the ultimate amateur running against the ultimate insider? And what better way to avoid the lefty stigma in a far-right state than to build a campaign on changing the way all sides do business in the nation’s capital?
I'm sure Senator McConnell can count on American Crossroads to help him out with this inspiring ad:
You know it won’t come easy. The GOP machine will spend tens of millions of dollars carpet-bombing Judd’s perceived vulnerabilities, which include her vocal support of the president, who is unpopular in Kentucky, and her strong words of protest against mountaintop-removal coal mining, which she once termed “the rape of Appalachia.”
A broad majority of Kentuckians oppose that destructive practice, but over the past decade, the coal industry has run a brilliantly successful (and, natch, affectingly patriotic) public-relations campaign, tying the fate of the black mineral to the state’s economic and cultural future. A politician pigeonholed as even slightly “anti-coal” can be viewed by those in the ploughed grounds as an agent of the elitist outsiders who are plotting to destroy our way of life.
Time for Ashley Judd to silence the coal industry's voice. 'Nuff said.
Judd’s great asset, however, is considerably more symbiotic—a sort of spiritual connection to the only state-sanctioned religion in the commonwealth: Kentucky basketball. We are a diverse and often divided state, but by the time March Madness rolls around, we are a cohesive, interdependent community: fans who might disagree sharply on matters of politics, religion, or lifestyle join voices in passionate advocacy of the beloved Wildcats.
By redefining the term “No. 1 fan” in her omnipresent advocacy for her alma mater, Ashley Judd is identified by Kentuckians, above all, as one of us. And once a year, she has stood at Rupp Arena’s center court to perform a hallowed ritual of the Big Blue Nation: after team cheerleaders contort their bodies on the hardwood to spell the first seven letters of the commonwealth’s name, Judd lifts her arms high into the air, and becomes, for one shining moment, the living quintessence of the letter “Y.” The “Y” tradition borders on a holy sacrament in Kentucky; today’s equivalent of a high priest standing at the Great Temple’s altar, reaching toward the heavens, urging the blue-attired congregation to its feet and lifting the faithful into frenzied revival.
In our highly personal brand of politics, that type of emotional connection with average voters is incalculable. And that’s how a political novice could very well wind up as the most personal of senators.
The answer at this point is simple: Ashley Judd, RUN. You still can take a little more time to think but RUN.
we might as well contact the DSCC:
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
Phone (202) 224-2447
Fax (202) 969-0354
For general information email info@dscc.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/...
Twitter: @DSCC
Google+ : https://plus.google.com/...
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/...
Any thoughts?