Do your country a favor. Send Amy McGrath to Congress.

Sixth Congressional District voters should eagerly embrace the candidacy of retired Marine Lt. Col. Amy McGrath. While her military record is commendable and the U.S. Congress is sorely in need of more women’s voices, national service and gender are not necessarily what best qualify her.

As a swing-district candidate, McGrath ascends to the national stage at an important moment. Nobody needs a reminder of the toxic and potentially dangerous political and social divides in America, nor an update on how a hyper-partisan, calcified Congress has failed to lead. Few believe continued GOP control of all branches of government will do anything but exacerbate the divide.

If the solution depends in part upon independent, moderate citizen-legislators, you could not ask for better than McGrath, despite the Republican propaganda machine’s efforts to paint her as extreme. Campaign commercials portraying her as favoring ninth-month abortions and open borders, among other absurdities, would be laughable, if not for the fact that they can be effective, mostly in discouraging voters and limiting turnout.

Dark-money attack ads linking her to Nancy Pelosi overlook the fact that Lexington Mayor Jim Gray was the national party’s choice in the May primary. Hearing McGrath calmly and persuasively rebut those sound bites ought to impress and reassure all but the most extreme partisans.

The real McGrath is a suburban mother of school-age kids, married to a Republican, whose approach during the campaign has been careful, disciplined, reasonable and impressively positive. If that is the personification of far-left radicalism repeated ad nauseum on the small screen, then the nation and the 6th District are positively teeming with dangerous insurgents.

A look at McGrath’s detailed policy proposals or a glimpse of her performance in public settings reveal her to be refreshingly unguarded and straightforward.

Yes, she is pro-choice. No, she would not have voted for the Trump tax cuts. Yes, she agrees with Pentagon leaders that climate change is a potential national security threat. No to the border wall. Gun owner, yes; NRA lackey, no. Yes to medical marijuana and industrial hemp. Yes to more investment in education, emphatic no to Education Secretary Betsy Devos’ efforts toward vouchers and privatization.

McGrath is particularly animated and convincing when addressing issues affecting veterans, like reining in predatory for-profit colleges and expanding health care. She is firm in her support of health care as a basic right, a commitment instilled in her by her physician mother, one of the earliest women to graduate from the University of Kentucky’s medical school.

McGrath points out the shortcomings of the Affordable Care Act and targets the massive bureaucracy of the insurance companies as hurdles to be cleared, not by repeal-and-replace, but by building on the existing law.

She applauds the ACA’s success in enrolling 500,000 previously uninsured Kentuckians. In this, as with so many other issues, McGrath reflects the moderate, common-sense instincts of the majority, not the self-interest of any monied minority.

In his three terms in Washington, Congressman Andy Barr has worked across the aisle on some issues. He has distinguished himself through solid constituent service, and has served veterans well, all of which we’d expect McGrath to continue.

But his allegiance to banking interests and steadfast commitment to overturning the post-recession Dodd-Frank safeguards (risking a return to the casino-economy collapse of 10 years ago), his opposition to progress on health care and his inexcusable refusal to stand up to even the most egregious actions of the Trump administration have been worse than just disappointing.

Barr has abandoned the true needs of his home state to cast his lot with the cynical Mitch McConnell power machine. He has become a virtual wind-up doll at regurgitating GOP talking points. And he is expert, if monotonous, at outlining the too-familiar assortment of scare tactics on immigration, crime, coal and regulation, among other issues. Such extremism in no way reflects the priorities of his Central Kentucky district.

Also on the ballot are independents James Germalic and Rikka Wallin and Libertarian Party candidate Frank Harris. We appreciate their dedication to public service, and while we have endorsed a few independent candidates, if ever there were a race and a moment where those votes would be wasted, surely this is it.

Rejecting the cynical politics of today and embracing the potential of tomorrow should be an easy choice for Kentuckians in the 6th District.

Unendorsed candidates may submit a 250-word response by noon Tuesday.

This story was originally published October 26, 2018 at 6:51 PM.