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Divided We Stand

Divided We Stand
New book about the 2020 election.

Friday, October 10, 2014

Grimes: Oops

Philip Bump reports at The Washington Post:
Alison Lundergan Grimes (D), who is trying to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) this fall, appeared before the Louisville Courier-Journal editorial board on Thursday to make her pitch for their endorsement. The life-long Democrat, whose father represented Kentucky for the party in the state House and who herself has been on the ballot in the state on the Democratic ticket, was asked a simple question. Did she vote for President Obama in 2008 and 2012?
And she didn't answer. Repeatedly.
In an interesting nod to the times, the interview was streamed live, meaning that it took no time at all for Republicans to clip the non-answer and put it online.
,,,
But there was no reason to do this. Grimes is fairly new on the national scene, but she's not new enough not to know how to answer this fairly simply. "Yes, I voted for him," you say, "but I've been disappointed by a lot of the things he's done, particularly on COAL and JOBS and GUNS" or whatever. It's simple. And then you can say, "but I backed Hillary in the primary" and so on and so on. 2008 was a landmark year, a wave for Democrats, when Obama's approval was sky-high. Of course she voted for him! Dodging the question looks like she's trying to hide her position, which is never the face you want to show -- particularly when conservatives are accusing her of hiding her positions on other things