Letters/Senate race: Sept. 9
McConnell right leader
Mitch McConnell's comments secretly recorded at a Koch brothers meeting are the same positions he makes publicly.
When a recording showed that Alison Grimes didn't mention coal as promised during a fundraiser with Sen. Harry Reid, you didn't write an editorial.
Koch Industries — oil, gas, chemicals, fertilizers and paper — employs 70,000 people. The Kochs believe in free enterprise, conservative government. Millionaire movie stars and George Soros, billionaire hedge-fund operator, support Grimes. Who understands the economy better?
The Herald-Leader claims "serving the Kochs will stifle economic growth." yet under President Barack Obama GDP has increased a little over 1 percent annually. Something has to change.
If Democrats retain control of the Senate, Reid will not allow votes on House bills nor allow Republican amendments. With Republicans controlling the Senate, Obama will have to negotiate. McConnell has shown he is more than willing to negotiate. He is the type of leader we need.
Norman Johnson
Lexington
Damning comments
The latest leaked words of Sen. Mitch McConnell, furnished by The Nation, replay the Mitt Romney kiss-up to billionaires.
McConnell's gushing is as bold as Romney's and equally as damning. McConnell displays total contempt for the people he was elected to represent.
Lord John Acton got it right when he said that "...absolute power corrupts absolutely."
The Alison Grimes campaign needs to run those shameful McConnell and Romney leaks side-by-side for voters to ponder how money-making greed is fast destroying our country.
Burger King is the latest tax dodgers moving off-shore, while arrogant McConnell wrecks our Democratic process in hidden meetings with corporate kings.
Is there no limit to how low McConnell can go before his gullible supporters turn against him?
Michael Gregoire
Louisville
McConnell's obsession
Can Mitch McConnell ever run a campaign ad without mentioning the name of our president?
Has he forgotten that a majority of the nation voted for Barack Obama, giving him a second term?
McConnell continues to run his "no second term for Obama" campaign, forgetting that this is 2014 and not 2012.
He has pouted about our president for six years now and we're tired of hearing it. He should get off his butt and run a 2014 campaign and tell us a plan.
Vote for Alison Grimes. A fresh new start.
Ben Smith
Lexington
McConnell, for Kentucky
Recently I was fortunate enough to attend some of the rallies of the Eastern Kentucky coal tour with Sen. Mitch McConnell, Rep. Hal Rogers and other local dignitaries.
I had never been to Pikeville, Paintsville or Hazard, but meeting the folks there who turned out for those events and others in the area was just like meeting a new neighbor here in Central Kentucky.
The burdensome and unnecessary extra regulations put on the coal mining segment of our economy have been devastating.
When McConnell talked about how President Barack Obama and his Environmental Protection Agency have acted essentially without any check and balance to artificially create a situation where it becomes too expensive to mine Kentucky coal, the looks on the faces of my new friends and Kentucky neighbors told the story.
I will be voting for McConnell this fall, for Kentucky.
Bill Marshall
Midway
Senator's twisted values
Mitch McConnell and his supporters keep saying that the senator is protecting Kentucky's values from the Obama agenda, but they never say exactly what those values are.
As far as I can tell, McConnell's only value is helping the rich get richer at everyone else's expense. In the name of small government he wants to eliminate all entitlements for ordinary citizens and increase the entitlements for the wealthy through specialized tax breaks.
He wants to go back to days when the rich coal mine owners lived in mansions up on the hill and the miners lived in the company town in the hollow with wages just high enough to pay the rent on their company shack and pay the bill for food at the company store. And when the miners got black lung they could sit on the porch waiting to die.
Is this really the values of the majority of Kentuckians?
Kevin Kline
Lexington
Get smart
A recent letter claimed that smart women vote for Mitch McConnell, but I can't figure out the smart part.
The writer worries about women and college graduates not being able to find work, yet it is smart voting for a person who gives tax breaks to companies moving jobs out of our country?
The writer worries about the loss of coal jobs, but will vote for someone whose wife sits on a board dedicated to cutting coal jobs. That makes sense?
The writer worries about the national debt, but will vote for the person who supported building that debt over the last 30 years? She worries about health-care costs and quality, but will vote for someone who tried to stop any progress in health-care reform?
It seems to me that voting for someone who is against fixing everything you worry about would be called crazy, not smart.
Arlin Marsh
Lexington
This story was originally published September 8, 2014 at 10:55 PM with the headline "Letters/Senate race: Sept. 9."