With ugly politics all around, where’s the line? This Kentucky race may show us.

You’re probably not a Twitter junkie like me, so you may have missed the Sunday night missive from Tres Watson, Frankfort consultant and sometimes witty former spokesman for the Kentucky Republican Party.

Earlier in the day, Kassidy Stumbo, the 19-year-old daughter of Attorney General candidate Greg Stumbo, waved a red flag by defending her dad in what’s already become one of the nastiest campaigns in recent memory.

At 8:28 p.m., Watson apparently decided he should be the one to lay down some hard truth to Kassidy, who, as I might have mentioned, is 19:

“If your father hasn’t sat you down and told you about the entirety of his past, I’m sorry, but it’s only gonna get worse. I know this sucks to hear, but, if that’s the case, your father isn’t who he’s told you he is. #sad #HesABadDude”

It’s not often you can be intrusive, inappropriate and really, really bizarre in just two sentences. I think Kassidy, along with anyone even basically cognizant of Kentucky politics, knows about Stumbo’s numerous problems, and like anyone with even the most basic family feeling, is still willing to stick up for her dad. To his credit, Watson took the tweet down on Monday.

More importantly, this kind of discourse is also why so many people stay out of politics, both as voters and participants, and it may be why state Democrats couldn’t find anyone else to run for Attorney General other than Stumbo, who has been Attorney General and House Speaker already, and apparently can’t stay away from politics despite a truly exceptional record of scandal and controversy.

Stumbo knew better than anyone what would happen if he went up against Daniel Cameron, a former legal counsel to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and thus part of the McConnell machine. First, Cameron destroyed fellow Republican Wil Schroeder in the primary by painting him as a Democrat. Now he’s turned his sights on Stumbo, defining him early as an immoral “deadbeat dad.” Stumbo calls Cameron a liar.

Fair enough, this is how the game is played these days, a game of obscene amounts of dark money and even darker politics. We unabashedly call on our worst angels, living as we do in an era when the President of the United States makes racist comments about a Congressional district and its black representative without any particular political fallout, and our own Sen. Rand Paul gets to throw red meat to his base by suggesting he send U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar a plane ticket to Somalia. (Also on Monday, Trump tweeted his “Full and Complete Endorsement” for Cameron, calling him a new political star.)

This ugliness, the racism, xenophobia and cruelty, is mostly contained to the Republican Party these days, but there’s a larger, more bi-partisan problem at hand. It’s obvious that regular folks are less than entranced by this kind of politics as usual. In the 2019 primary, about 19 percent of registered voters showed up at the polls, that’s less that one in five people who thought it worthwhile to take part in our democratic process. In the 2018 general election, it only moved up to 33 percent. One in three people.

Why are we not more alarmed by these statistics? Maybe politicians and operatives should start thinking about why people hate politics, instead of spending their valuable intellectual capital on how best to zing a 19-year-old on social media or pile on a Muslim politician.

Maybe not as much fun, but a lot more worthwhile in the long run.

Linda Blackford writes columns and commentary for the Herald-Leader.

This story was originally published July 29, 2019 at 3:23 PM.