Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared to freeze again Wednesday, this time during a gaggle with reporters in Covington, Kentucky, stopping for more than 30 seconds after he was asked if he would run for re-election.
The Kentucky Republican froze in July at a news conference on Capitol Hill, going silent for 19 seconds before being escorted away from the cameras. McConnell, 81, returned shortly afterward and continued his news conference, telling reporters, “I’m fine.”
When it became apparent that McConnell had frozen again on Wednesday, an aide came up to him and asked, “Did you hear the question, senator?” McConnell continued to be unresponsive.
Question, if the good people of Kentucky finally get rid of this horrible man, what’s the prospect for the future?
Are they so deep red there’s no chance of electing someone more sensible, or is that state ripe for some competition?
Kentucky is very weird. They are not afraid to elect a democrat to governor if it’s necessary, but for any other position it’s GOP or bust. Most people I know in Kentucky HATE Mitch McConnell but vote for him anyway. Rand Paul on the other hand, they worship the ground he walks on.
Also the Democratic Party in Kentucky sucks. They are not effective at organizing outside of Jefferson County and are totally out of touch with what to do in the rest of the State. The last two elections against McConnell they ran women against him. I worked on one of them in 2014, and I had so many people tell me “I don’t like Mitch, but I won’t vote for a woman.” Other people experienced the same thing, and for some reason they decided to do it AGAIN in 2020 thinking the state had changed just because they elected a dem governor. Kentucky is not ready for women in politics even in 2023, but the Kentucky Dems refuse to see that. They will either have to run an old white guy or not even bother. Sucks to say, but that’s the state.
Pretty much a matter of people actually voting and republicans being less successful at voter suppression.
McConnell is effective because of his tenure. A new Kentucky senator is still likely to be a fuck stick, but they probably wont be so brutal.
On a positive note, Kentucky does have a democrat Governor, so it does occasionally fall in the “Montana/Wisconsin split statewide seats” vote. A dem senator is slightly possible.
They’ve been planning for this eventuality. The state legislature passed a law requiring the governor to appoint someone of the same party.
Of course they did, which will give that person an “incumbent” boost before their actual election.
Anything to tip the scales. I guarantee they would repeal that law if they had a dem governor and a dem senator.
I guess a guy who would block a POTUS’s constitutional task to appoint a SCOTUS justice would not be above doing the same thing to a dem Kentucky governor over a senate seat.
Mitch actually won the seat over a long time democrat. At the time he was considered an insane longshot but he had aid from Rodger Ailes. McConnell ended up winning in an upset.
When did the long time democrat originally take the seat?
Near the end of the Civil War?