Soon to be the lone Democrat in Ky.'s delegation, Yarmuth to meet at White House...

cn|2 Pure Politics ^ | 11/28/2012 | Nick Storm

[Republican Wildcat]

Soon to be the lone Democrat in Ky.'s delegation, Yarmuth to meet at White House to discuss appointments

U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth of Louisville told Pure Politics he is meeting this week with White House officials to go over potential federal appointments in preparation for being the lone Democrat in Kentucky’s congressional delegation.

The election loss of U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler of Versailles leaves Yarmuth as Kentucky’s only member of Congress in President Barack Obama’s party. That will mean he will take on more responsibility in facilitating judicial and U.S. Attorney appointments, as the Courier-Journal first reported.

Yarmuth told Pure Politics on Tuesday that he would be meeting with the White House this week to decide how to handle federal appointments without a Democratic Senator and no other Democratic congressman.

This is the second time in Kentucky’s history that only one Democrat has served in the federal delegation — Chandler in 2005.

“I guess I have to speak up a little louder for the things that Democrats believe in, but just in terms of day-to-day activities I guess I’ll be more involved in federal appointments than I otherwise would have been,” Yarmuth said.

On the political front, Yarmuth said he stands by his assertion that actress Ashley Judd could be a top Democratic contender to challenge on U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell in 2014.

Judd’s grandmother Polly Judd praised McConnell for his work in Kentucky, and House Speaker Greg Stumbo told WFPL Judd’s position on mountaintop removal coal mining would make her a difficult candidate for Kentuckians to support. Pure Politics also offered an analysis on the potential challengers to McConnell in early November

Yarmuth said he feels Judd would be “very strong opponent for Senator McConnell and would have a chance to beat him.” But Yarmuth went on to say that Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes would also be a strong candidate to run against McConnell in 2014.

“I don’t necessarily have a preference as to who it is I just want us to have a very strong candidate,” Yarmuth said after a public event on Tuesday.

http://mycn2.com/politics/yarmuth-still-supporting-judd-but-feels-there-s-room-for-grimes-to-run-against-mcconnell - Video at link

[HiTech RedNeck]

Kentucky’s getting redder...

[HiTech RedNeck]

Kentucky’s getting redder... that’s where this heer red neck wuz born too.

[max americana]

tar and feather the Rat...

[HiTech RedNeck]

what a waste of perfectly good tar and feathers

[fieldmarshaldj]

These folks are crazy if they think an angry FemiNazi moonbat like Ashley Judd is remotely competitive for a Senate seat in Kentucky. Still, I think it’s time for McConnell to step aside. After what will be 30 years in DC, he’s become part of the problem.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

This guy sounds like he’s insane. He has no power in the House of Representatives. He’s like a little roach you ignore in the corner.

He’ll probably end up on a committee that decides which janitorial service cleans the toilets.

I’ve heard of big egos but this guy is something else. Hopefully next time, extinct.

[Impy]

These are the same morons who thought Nick Clooney was can’t miss for a GOP House seat (the one that taken by “conservative” rat Ken Lucas). I still remember this one freeper that agreed with them and insisted to me that Clooney would win cause people remember him from when he was newscaster and liked his sister’s music. Retarded.

Ashley Judd is a clown candidate, Kentucky is not Minnesota.

KY Senate races are usually close, with a real candidate they could actually compete with McConnell.

It would be awful nice to take out Obama’s boy Yarmuth in 2014 and make it a rat free delegation. and take the friggin State House already!

[Impy]

I’d like McConnell to retire as well. But he won’t.

[Republican Wildcat]

Which is why I hope she does run. :-)

[Republican Wildcat]

Unfortunately, with the redistricting, I don’t see the 3rd congressional district going GOP again anytime soon - much of eastern Jefferson County was drawn out of it which is a conservative area. Even before that it was a difficult district ... the fact that Anne Northup held it for 10 years was extraordinary.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Nick Clooney was running on the wrong side of the Ohio River. He’d have been better off taking a shot at a seat from Cincinnati (OH-1), which was where I believe he was based on tv. I liked Rosemary’s music, too, but she was a big-time Kennedy groupie, and that wasn’t going to play well outside certain areas. Had Nick won, he would’ve voted like Yarmuth (who is a moonbat) rather than the more moderate Ken Lucas.

The other thing about Ashley is that she was a delegate to the Dem Convention from Tennessee this year, so I wonder when she was planning on moving. I doubt her own mother, Naomi, whom I believe is a Conservative, would vote for her own daughter.

The biggest worrisome candidate would be the defeated Congressman Ben Chandler. He’s already won statewide. He’ll have to decide whether to run for the Senate or seek a third match against Andy Barr, or none of the above. At this point, however, I wouldn’t want to be a Dem running for these offices in 2014. Had Willard been in the WH, it would be a different story.

[Impy]

The old 3rd and the new redrawn 3rd gave Obama the same % in 2008, 56%. Probably a little less this time.

Kerry (and before him, Gore) barely carried it, it was a 2 point margin both times.

It's tough, it took a big swing to Obama, but in a good year we could win it again.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I’m expecting the GOP won’t have control of redistricting in KY until 2021 (they’ll probably get the House by 2014 and the Governorship in 2015, 2019 at the latest). I don’t know whether the state will drop to 5 seats by 2022, however. If it does, that almost guarantees the Louisville seat will be split up and the GOP will win the entire delegation.

The only other district aside from Louisville that would’ve been troublesome was the old 7th in the union/coal Dem counties in the east, held for decades by the Perkins’s. But it seems that, like WV (for which not a single solitary county voted Democrat for President, unprecedented in the modern era), it is slowly moving back to the GOP (which it partly was prior to FDR, as WV was from the 1890s until 1932). Hal Rogers, albeit a porker, has put it back pretty well in our corner after his old 5th heavily GOP seat was merged with the 7th to create what was a marginal seat after 1992.

[Impy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mriXncI96lw

Naomi Judd a conservative?

If I had a relative running for office as a rat I would oppose them with extra vigor. If I had a kid that was, I would probably go jump in the lake.

Maybe the time in Hollywood was led to Ashley forgetting that TN and KY are 2 separate states.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Rosemary Clooney HATED that song, regardless of its popularity. It’s really frustrating having to sing songs you loathe, even getting paid well for them. I tried out for chorus in middle school (and I could sing - and I was a big fan of “Fame”, which was a lot less faggy then the intolerable “Glee”, which I have never watched), but they had us singing execrable kiddie songs like, “How Much Is That Doggie In The Window.” I gritted my teeth and mouthed the words, but I couldn’t sing it, I hated it. Not that I wanted to belt out “Bohemian Rhapsody” (nevermind that I would never been able to memorize those lyrics), but something remotely appealing (this was 1984). I was not chosen, surprisingly...

[Impy]

I like that song. She didn’t like doing an accent huh?

I loathed grade school assemblies, I think there were 2 a year, sitting there with my feet not reaching the floor, being forced to line up and sing for bored parents, I always mouthed the stupid songs.

I still remember the feeling of liberation I had when during the rehearsals for my 8th grade graduation I told the teacher (who was barking orders as if to kindergarteners) to get off my case cause I was skipping it. I went and sat next to this other kid who reached the same conclusion, we nodded to each other and shared a knowing look.

[rashley]

McConnell needs to be “primaried.”

[AuH2ORepublican]

KY will stay at 6 Representatives after 2020.

The KY-03 is like 20% black, and Louisville seems to be going the way of other largish cities in the South (not sure if Yankee transplants are to blame). The CD could be made a bit more Republican by adding the Republican suburban counties currently in KY-04 and placing working-class Dem precincts in Louisville in the KY-02, but even then it would still be marginal.

Regarding the KY-05 having the most heavily Dem coal counties from the old KY-07, the Democrats got so darn greedy in 1990 that they tried to win all 6 CDs (even the Republican-packed Ky-04 was stripped of the GOP east side of Louisville to try to defeat Bunning) instead of drawing two super-safe GOP CDs (one from East Louisville to the Cinci suburbs, the other combining Rogers’s most Republican counties with GOP counties in the Lexington and Bowling Green areas), and four Dem-leaning CDs, that they ended up with only one of six CDs for most of the past 20 years. A cautionary tale for Republicans trying to draw 6 GOP CDs in KY. The optimal map for the GOP would combine Dem parts of Louisville with Frankfort, Lexington and Dem coal counties, leaving the other five CDs pretty safely GOP, but the geography would be tough to pull off and it would be a gerrymander of unseemly proportions (black Louisvillians in the same snake-like CD as coal miners?).

[StAnDeliver]

"On the political front, Yarmuth said he stands by his assertion that actress Ashley Judd could be a top Democratic contender to challenge on U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell in 2014."

Dems desperate for a 'fall guy gal'. She doesn't even live in Kentucky.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”I’d like McConnell to retire as well. But he won’t.”

I been meaning to mention this subject.

Back in 2009 McConnell said on camera that his #1 objective as minority leader was to make O a one term POTUS.

Think about this. There is no defense for keeping him in that position in the new congress(Senate) now based on his own words. By his own public words he is a complete and utter failure,

And I hold Senate Rs in complete contempt if they do vote him in again. It means they are about nothing and are determined to be the loser party.

I hate this type of phony dishonest brash talk.

[AuH2ORepublican]

Re: the coal counties in the Perkinses' old KY-07, 2012 was the first real sign of movement I've seen towards the GOP, and it cannot be discounted that if the Democrats don't nominate an elitist, pro-gay-marriage, pro-abortion, virulently anti-coal black Chicago Democrat next time they will return to the Democrat fold. After all, John Kerry actually did better in many of those counties in 2004 than Gore did in 2000, perhaps due to John Edwards's populism.

It should be noted that not every county in the region is ancestrally Democrat: Martin and Johnson Counties stayed overwhelmingly Republican through the New Deal and until today (although Clinton did very well there and even carried Martin in 1996 and Johnson twice thanks to Perot), and Lawrence County has leaned Republican through the years (with a few exceptions).

Here's the 2012 map (with proper Republican Blue and Communist Red). Only Elliott County voted for Obama in Coal Country, but he got under 50%, as compared to the 61% he got in 2008 and the 70% that Kerry got in 2004:

Here's the 2008 map, with four coal counties going for Obama:

Here's 2004, when Kerry carried all but one of the ancestrally Democrat counties in the region (Morgan County, where he got 48%, 4% better than Gore):

And here's 2000, with Gore doing very well in the SE KY counties along the VA and TN borders (many of those were in Rogers's CD even before 1992, right, DJ?), but not as well as Kerry would in the core Coal Country counties:

Just like the fact that every single county in WV voted Republican for president this year (perhaps the only time it's ever happened, although Lincon may have done it in 1864, WV's first presidential election; even in 1972, when Nixon had a larger margin in WV than did Romney, McGovern carried Logan County 51%-49%) does not mean that Demcorats can't win House races in WV (as proven by Nick Joe Rahall, who won once again in the WV-03), KY Coal Country abandoning Obama in 2012 may be an ephemeral realignment, or no realignment at all. If we can stick those coal counties that voted for Kerry in 2004 in the same district as Lafayette (which keeps getting more Democrat), Frankfort (ditto--Franklin County was one of only nine (IIRC) to vote for McCain in 2008 and Obama in 2012) and Democrat parts of Louisville, it will allow us to draw five safe GOP House districts for perpetuity. 5 out of 6 is 83%--I'll take it.

[GOPsterinMA]

Yes.

[GOPsterinMA]

“Bohemian Rhapsody”

“Gay Spock”

Hmmm...

[Impy]

I doubt he’ll be primaried, at least by anyone who could beat him.

It’s also unlikely he’d be replaced as leader unless he really effs up these next two years.

[AuH2ORepublican]

Oh, and I forgot to comment on this erroneous statement in the article:

“This is the second time in Kentucky’s history that only one Democrat has served in the federal delegation — Chandler in 2005.”

It is true that starting on January 3, 2005, and until January 3, 2007, KY only had one Democrat in its congressional delegation (Ben Chandler). But how can they say that it was the only time that it had happened, when Ken Lucas had been the only in KY’s congressional delegation from January 3, 1999 (when he was sworn in to the House as Congressman Baessler and Senator Ford departed) until February 17, 2004 (when Chandler was sworn in after winning a special election)? That was over five years of a single-Democrat state delegation. And it ended less than 10 years ago: how could the author—who claims to be so knowledgable regarding KY politics—forget about that?

[Impy]

Yeah that bastard Lucas took Bunning's seat as Ernie F took Baeslar's. (and then clowned him in 2000 when he tried to take it back hahahahaha)

And then that swine Chandler had to go and win Ernie's seat before we got Bunning's back. LAME.

I think beating Chandler was the only House race we won that I wasn't sure we would.

Compared to several I was sure we would that we did not. ;/

Another tibit from the CD POTUS numbers, Romney kicked ass in Bachmann's district by 15 points as she barely won. A much worse disparity than West's district (carried by Romney). It's a shame to see her so weak.

[DoughtyOne]

I think you’re on solid ground there. My personal belief is that his actions on a number of issues have been less than stellar, and that he needs to step down due to that.

Yours is certainly one of those instances.

Part of the reason we can’t gain traction, is because we have disastrous leaders in both the House and the Senate.

We need some young blood willing to take it to the Left and not back down. We’re still playing stick ball level, and they’re playing at professional baseball level.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I do believe the realignment is real in those areas. The national Dem party has become so viscerally hostile not only to coal, but to the cultural values of this region. 2000 was seemingly a fluke given the historical preferences, 2004 was a validation that even though usually Dem, they will support a GOP incumbent, but 2008 was a trend and 2012 was a pretty clear-cut realignment. While they may be more sympathetic to a White Dem, I think the horses are out of the proverbial barn.

WV was moving back towards the GOP at the legislative level in the early ‘70s, but Watergate halted the progress (as it did in most other Southern states), but we’re now more deeply enmeshed there than in 1972. Only the power of incumbency for the Dems there and in parts of KY keep them in office, and that is crumbling. I think once the GOP goes above majority status in the KY House & WV House, which may happen in the next cycle, the near-perpetual Dem lock on the statewide offices will finally fall across the board.

[AuH2ORepublican]

I don’t think that 2004 showed movement towards the GOP in eastern KY: 4 counties went from Gore to Bush, but 6 others went from Bush to Kerry. There was a bit of movement towards the GOP in 2008 but the biggest movement was in 2012. I don’t know if it’s a case of the dam bursting or just a temporary, Obama-caused blip. I wouldn’t throw out that 2004 election map yet, since that could be the paradigm we’re facing 4 years from now.

And the biggest problem will continue to be at the local and congressional level, not at the presidential level. The RATs won’t be nominating an Obama type for Congress in Coal Country, and a lot of those counties still will be voting Democrat reflexively for non-presidential races.

[Republican Wildcat]

In 2010, Chandler (D) barely won re-election by just a few hundred votes to Republican Andy Barr. The Democrats’ influence in the Kentucky House redrew the 6th Congressional district to supposedly be more favorable to Chandler by putting more traditionally Democrat leaning counties into the district and moved more conservative counties out. A Republican State Senator, Alice Forgy Kerr (Chandler’s opponent in his first election to the Congressional seat) even called it the “Ben Chandler Lifetime Employment Act”. However, Chandler lost the new counties to his district that were supposed to be helpful to him and he lost the election to Barr in the rematch - that is evidence to suggest you have the right analysis on that. Barr and the NRCC did a bang up job on making coal an issue - not just appealing to the new Eastern Kentucky counties in the district, but also explaining how it affects the broader economy and other industries jobs as well - including car sales, grocery sales, etc. so that the coal issue also would relate to the people in the core central area part of the district that coal would not have normally been an issue that would be effective. Really quite an impressive strategy. It was a very effective campaign and should have been the way the national campaign was run. If Obama had been run against nationally the way he was in the 6th congressional district I believe it would have been far more effective - Simplifying the issues and showing people how it directly affects them and their families. See some examples below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ITXhzjOUhC8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hv2XuO2XIds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uTgbMaxA0hw

[AuH2ORepublican]

I think that Forgy exaggerated quite a bit in her assessment of the redrawn CD. The McCain percentage was reduced by only 1%, from 55% to 54%, so it barely moved the scales. Had the Republicans not controlled the state senate, then the Democrats would have been able to do something more effective (although it still wouldn’t have made Chandler 100% safe), such as adding the Democrat (or marginal) coal counties of Wolfe, Menifee, Rowan, Elliott, Carter, Morgan, Magoffin, Breathitt, Kntt and Floyd and excising heavily Republican Jessamine, Garrard, Lincoln, Boyle, Mercer, Anderson and Estill Counties.