KyKurmudgeon

Sunday's column:

FRANKFORT — A few days after the 2007 primary election, Democratic leaders staged a unity rally at the party’s state headquarters.

All the losing gubernatorial candidates showed up in a demonstration of support for the nominee, everyone made nice to each other, and Steve Beshear went on to an easy win over Republican incumbent Gov. Ernie Fletcher in the fall.

Friday, Kentucky Democrats staged another post-primary unity rally. Once again, it was a verbal hug-fest.

“Today, there are no differences,” said Greg Fischer, who ran second to Bruce Lunsford in a U.S. Senate primary that got a tad nasty at times. “Today, we’re all Democrats unified in one common purpose: to put a Democrat in the White House and to put a Democrat in the United States Senate.”

Lunsford responded in kind, saying Fischer “has a great future if he decides to stay in the game.”

Lunsford and party leaders outlined the case against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, which largely consists of being joined at the hip with President Bush during a period of time when the United States has made a handbasket visit to a very hot place.

It’s a message that should resonate with folks who are fed up with having American troops die in an ill-advised war and who have been battered financially by $4-per-gallon gas prices and a tanked economy that includes a lending crisis and a slump in the housing market.

And Lunsford has a gift for making the case against the man he calls “Sir Mitchell.”

At one point Friday, he flipped one of McConnell’s ads against him by noting that “someone who had health care that helped him get from polio to an all-star Little Leaguer voted against … health care for children in this country.” Later, he pointed out that “a guy who has consistently voted for a war in Iraq has consistently voted against the warriors.”

Whether these are his own lines or some that have been crafted for him, they are the kind that hit home in 30-second sound-bite fashion.

But this isn’t 2007, and even a unified Democratic Party will have a way tougher time taking down Mitch McConnell than it did taking down a weakened governor who had been indicted in a hiring scandal.

For one thing, Lunsford comes with exploitable baggage, as some of Fischer’s campaign ads reminded us. And although most of the party’s leaders appear to be united behind him in this race, it is less certain that Democratic voters have forgiven him completely for endorsing Fletcher in the 2003 general election.
However, Lunsford’s baggage may be the least of Kentucky Democrats’ worries this year.

Tuesday’s 43 percent turnout by Democratic voters indicates a high level of motivation within the party. But nearly two-thirds of them voted for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the presidential primary, even though national pundits were already ceding the nomination to Sen. Barack Obama.

Exit polls conducted that day and a recent Herald-Leader/WKYT Kentucky Poll found that race matters to about 20 percent of the state’s Democratic voters. And that just accounts for the ones who would admit to discriminatory thoughts.

Such numbers provide a sad commentary on this state, but they also represent an unfortunate reality for Kentucky Democrats to deal with if Obama is at the top of the party’s ticket this fall.

Even if Clinton were to catch lightning in a bottle, I’m not sure things would get much better for Democrats. I suspect a substantial number of folks who voted for her because of Obama’s race did so because their racism trumped their sexism in the primary, and thus would vote for Sen. John McCain because of her gender in the general election.

Finally, there is McConnell himself, a master of fund-raising and nasty campaigns that go straight for the jugular.

So, no matter how united Democratic leaders may be, turning the Bluegrass State blue will be tough task this year.