In 2017, a retired fighter pilot put out an ad that got the entire liberal community excited for a competitive House seat in Kentucky. Signs were up in our neighborhoods. People were working for her campaign. But then she lost by 10,000 votes.
She then ran against Mitch McConnell, collecting even more money, and losing by way more votes.
And so the Democrats moved on. Both national and from what I can tell statewide and locally. Especially after the results of the Kentucky 6th Democratic Primary last night.
A crackpot won the Democratic Party in my district.
Lots of blame to go around:
- Voters
- The media
- The Fayette County Democrats
- The Kentucky Democrats
- Ignorance as a whole
In 2020, I signed up to act as a precinct captain for my neighborhood. I received nothing from the party besides invites to webinars. No emails. No content. Just webinars. Oh, and requests for money.
I gave money to one local candidate: Chris Preece. He is a science teacher, who ran to compete in the Sixth District of Kentucky, where I live. And he lost to a fringe candidate who has run seven times unsuccessfully and has conspiracy theory claims at every ounce of his website. I won’t use a name because I believe he and his supporters Google it.
Why Kentucky Doesn’t Matter to Democrats
Even within the state, it seems like the Democratic Party doesn’t care to remain viable in any corner of the state. It definitely has not tried to engage voters as less than 20% of registered voters even bothered to vote in the primary election.
Much of the elections were for local offices – mayors, councilpeople, sheriffs, judges. Most of it matters far more than anything. But the nationalization of our politics and our media has made it impossible to learn anything about local candidates or even consider voting for any of them.
And so the party seems to want to spend no resources building a bench or trying to find messages that may appeal to people who just don’t vote.
Enter the Sixth District primary.
There was no debate. The local TV networks decided not to cover the House race.
No coverage. Outside of a few paragraphs, the local paper didn’t run an endorsement or work towards anything. But now that it’s over, they will talk about how fringe the candidate is.
Additionally, I received nothing from the state or local party discussing their candidates for the House race in the only other district in the state that has even a large number of active Democrats. They let a young man, running for office for the first time, lose to a character who self-funded with nearly $100,000 of his own money to put up a billboard and send maniacal brochures.
But the voters are also to blame. In 2020, the candidate who won ran as a Republican and earned under 3,000 votes. Primaries are closed in Kentucky, so unless they changed their registration, many of those 3,000 probably did not vote in the Democratic primary this year. In 2019, he ran at the state level and got less than 10,000 votes. In 2018, he got under 2,000 votes. And in 2016, he got 15,000 votes.
Even he thought name recognition because of his many attempts at office won him this election. Most likely that’s true. Additionally, some people just vote for the first name on the ballot.
As I highly doubt a majority of the Democrats in my district :
- Believe Ukraine is ruled by Nazis
- Support Russia and want leadership who seeks interviews with RT to be used as a tool of Putin’s state run media
- Ignore human rights violations by dictators in Syria, Venezuela, and Russia
- Seek to abolish the CIA (whatever the hell that means)
Voting Your Conscience
Years ago, someone told me that they were okay to vote for Trump as a Republican beause I would vote for a Democrat no matter what. I disagreed. I said there are people who are completely unfit for office.
I have the ability to vote now for someone who does not believe my marriage should exist and literally voted to overthrow an election or a crackpot who thinks that dictators around the world treat their citizens better than the United States.
I’m incredibly disappointed in the Kentucky Democratic Party, the leaders of the party, the media, and especially my fellow citizens. No one spent the time to look at the ballot and consider what this means. Or how this will look.
A man running around supporting Putin’s use of aggressive forces against a peaceful nation is running as a “Peace candidate”. A man who claimed that no war crimes were committed in Syria supposedly cares about human rights.
Either way, this was malfeasance by the Democrats in Kentucky to not spend a cent or lift a finger to help a competent man get a chance to run for national office. Instead, they let a clown “lead” the party on the ballot in November.
He will get destroyed in the general election as any Democrat would as the district is gerrymandered to be more Republican than it was before. But the stain of this primary will be on the heads of the current leadership in the state Democratic Party to not fund or work to elect someone who will not embarass the party even more.
Winning an election is important – but finding and working to enlist candidates who can inspire others to seek office and create a better tomorrow is how parties change and grow. The party showed this week that it doesn’t want to grow. It is happy ignoring that it exists and lets the weeds take over the lawn.
I will be leaving my ballot blank for this race in November. I will do it with a clear conscience. We are in a sad state of affairs. And it will only get worse as our institutions prefer to spend their times parrotting each other and ignoring anything that could be good.
