Kentucky Democrats make their case to take on McConnell amid protests, pandemic
KET’s candidate forum in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate was, as they say, overtaken by events.
It came on a day when a popular Louisville restaurant owner was killed in gunfire with police and the National Guard, the second death of a civilian this year where Louisville Metro Police Department officers did not activate body cameras; on a night of police brutality protests that have roiled major cities across the country; in the fourth month of a global pandemic that has infected more than a million Americans and killed more than 100,000.
The three major Democratic candidates hoping to challenge U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in November were asked to sit six feet apart from each other in KET’s Lexington studio and do what no politician has really been able to do in a year defined by its unpredictability — paint a path forward.
State Rep. Charles Booker, D-Louisville, arrived straight from the protests that have roiled his native Louisville, where he was tear gassed Sunday night and stood vigil Monday at the site where David McAtee was killed early Monday morning. He attempted to lend a voice to the frustration felt in communities across the country pressing for change.
“It isn’t aspirational just to listen and say we need to do more,” Booker said. “We need results right now and it means we have to acknowledge the challenges that are levied within the institutions that see someone like me, who doesn’t come from a lot, as a deadly weapon before a human being.”
Booker was the only candidate who had participated in the protests. Amy McGrath, the Democratic front-runner, cited the coronavirus pandemic as her reason for staying home. Mike Broihier, a Lincoln County farmer, said he didn’t want to seem like he was using the protests for political gain.
McGrath, leaning into her military background, said there needs to be a better “command climate” for police officers, which would demand accountability and allow for independent investigations when citizens are killed by law enforcement officers. Broihier called for the demilitarization of police and talked about wanting to lower incarceration rates. Booker talked about the need to push for state and federal legislation to get rid of no-knock warrants, which Louisville police used in March when Breonna Taylor, a former EMT and emergency room technician, was killed.
The protests are part of a larger movement calling for systematic change — the type of change Booker and Broihier have been campaigning on, though they have failed to gain much traction in recent months. Both men have criticized McGrath as being the Democratic status quo — the type of candidate who straddles the line between Democrat and Republican.
“You’re not going to convince people who voted for Trump to vote for you because you’re not as bad as Mitch McConnell,” Booker said at one point, in a not-so-veiled criticism of McGrath.
But McGrath, the former Marine Corps pilot who lost a Congressional bid to U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, R-Lexington, in 2018, stuck to her script. She talked about high prescription drug prices and the need for infrastructure. She dropped the first names of women she’s met on the campaign trail who illustrated her points. She talked about the military and how she feels McConnell isn’t doing enough to help Kentuckians. She even got in a plug for the website her campaign created to help people request absentee ballots. (The state’s official website is www.govoteky.com.)
When asked about the fact that she said during her campaign announcement last July that McConnell was standing in the way of President Donald Trump’s policies, McGrath gave the same answer that garnered criticism from the progressive base of the Democratic Party in the first place — that Trump campaigned on lowering prescription drug prices and expanding infrastructure.
“I think that’s what people want,” McGrath said. “Wouldn’t you want someone who is going to do what’s right for Kentucky?”
When asked about the other gaffe that soured some Democrats on her electoral prospects — saying she would have voted to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in July and then reversing herself hours later after an online backlash — McGrath gave the line she usually gives: that she’s not a politician and that she “makes mistakes like everyone else.”
It is a strategy born from the fact that the $29.8 million McGrath has raised is 54 times more than the amount Booker and Broihier have raised combined. It comes from the fact that she is the only candidate in the primary who has purchased ads on television — ads she is using to go tit-for-tat with McConnell.
It has left Booker and Broihier waving their hands, pushing to get the attention of voters who have already started mailing in ballots for the June 23rd primary.
“I know what it means to feel invisible,” Booker said, making the argument for how a lifelong Louisvillian can connect with those in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. “To feel like nobody listens to you or cares about you. And the reason I have to answer this question so much is because no one pays attention to my neighborhood.”
This story was originally published June 1, 2020 at 10:34 PM.
