Well this is interesting. Ashley Judd's adviser blames Kentucky Democrats and the national media for torpedoing her nascent run for the Kentucky Senate.
Such was the charge that Judd told a group of supporters at a private dinner in Louisville, “I have been raped twice, so I think I can handle Mitch McConnell.” The actress’ apparent flippant comparison of a political campaign to sexual assault spread like Ebola across the Internet, leading some to classify Judd as the Democratic version of Todd Akin.
The problem is, it never happened.
I was at that dinner and never heard her say anything remotely like that. What’s more, such a statement would have been completely inconsistent with the way I’ve heard Ashley discuss her horrifying experiences as the youthful victim of sexual assault—how they defined her in adulthood; how they propelled her to champion women’s empowerment across the globe.
Interestingly, in all the 'accounts' of her making that remark, there is no firsthand attribution, only accounts of other outlets 'reporting' it.
This statement that Judd supposedly made never passed the smell test for me. Once again it seems intuition was right on the mark.
Having said that, I fell for the lie that Bill Clinton was discouraging Ms. Judd from running, in favor of Allison Grimes.
But I can personally attest to one prominent Kentucky supporter of the Clinton/Gore reelection campaign: Ashley Judd. Indeed, that’s where we first met. And Judd’s close relationship with both Clintons continued through Hillary’s 2008 bid, when the actress campaigned with Bill in Texas. He later returned the favor by providing the cover squib for Judd’s 2011 memoir, All That Is Bitter and Sweet. So it’s not surprising that Ashley informed our Louisville dinner group that the former president had privately urged her to run against McConnell, offering his complete support for her prospective campaign.
ABC News ultimately cleared up the record, but by then the narrative was set—the most popular national figure for Kentucky Democrats was opposed to a Judd candidacy, providing further oxygen to the anti-Ashley conflagration.
I seriously doubt Kentucky will flip to blue this time around. The turtle is not going anywhere.
All the while, I imagine McConnell sitting back, watching the antics with his sly, tight grin, enjoying how a small group of Democrats duped the so-called liberal media into creating the false narrative of a Democratic civil war. Only a master politician could get so damn lucky.
Mitch McConnell: lucky, or good?
I believe Ms. Judd would have made a tremendous candidate and Senator. Why would any qualified person want to run for office given this kind of treatment? Nothing like having your own party stab you in the back.