Regardless of whether the Republicans win enough seats for a majority in the U.S. Senate, there’s a very real possibility that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will be defeated by Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes. But if the traditional news media continues to miss one of the most damning stories on McConnell, it could swing the election away from Grimes and back into the Republican win column.
The other night, the candidates squared off in a televised debate, and the news media takeaway the played directly in McConnell’s favor: Grimes continues to sidestep questions about whether she voted for President Obama and, as Tommy Christopher pointed out, her question-dodging prompted NBC News’s Chuck Todd to outrageously suggest that by refusing to answer the question Grimes has “disqualified herself.” This is somehow the big national story: Grimes’s choice for president, and why she refuses to discuss her votes. Again, we’re not talking about legislative votes or even decisions she’s made as Kentucky’s Secretary of State — her choices in the voting booth.
Between this and the wall-to-wall Ebola hysteria, the traditional news media has attained full clown-show status. Chuck Todd might as well be wearing giant red shoes, squirting Joe Scarborough will a seltzer bottle, while a chimp on roller skates flogs Willie Geist with a cartoon-sized Wiffle bat.
What’s been almost entirely overlooked out of Kentucky, regardless of the cable news venue, is an issue that speaks directly to the rotting core of the Republican Party. McConnell keeps insisting that he will help to repeal the Affordable Care Act, aka. “Obamacare,” even though a plurality of Kentuckians love the ACA insurance marketplace there, known as “Kynect.” On top of that, 60 percent of Kentuckians support the expansion of Medicaid, as authorized by the ACA. By the way, that 60 percent? I should clarify: it’s 60 percent of Kentucky Republicans. Kentucky Republicans by a supermajority margin support the expansion of Medicaid per the dreaded Obamacare law. Support rises to 79 percent among all Kentuckians.
Yet Mitch McConnell wants to repeal the law. Sort of?… CONTINUE READING