Ky. Unions Rally to Grimes in Drive to 'Ditch Mitch'
Alison Lundergan Grimes started her stump speech to union members, local Democratic Party officials and others in Paducah, Ky., with a quote from Sen. Mitch McConnell: “Public sector unions are a 50-year mistake. Unions are to blame for distrust of our government. Unions are power hungry and no longer serve the public interest.”
Then the 34-year-old Democrat who wants McConnell’s job lowered the boom:
He didn’t realize what he was describing was how Kentuckians feel about his service in Washington.
The crowd inside Walker Hall Events Center loved the jab. They clapped, cheered, whistled and laughed. Grimes got more of the same throughout her speech, and earned a standing ovation at the end.
The Grimes-McConnell matchup is expected to be one of the most closely watched Senate races next year. That’s assuming McConnell turns back tea party challenger Matt Bevin in the May 2014 Republican primary.
Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of state, was in Paducah for the annual pre-Fancy Farm luncheon sponsored by the West Kentucky Building and Construction Trades.
The Paducah feed was Grimes’ warm-up for the state’s biggest political picnic, held the next day in little Fancy Farm, near Paducah. It was the first time Grimes, McConnell and Bevin crossed paths on what will be a lengthy campaign trail.
Bevin also spoke. So did Democrat Ed Marksberry, one of Grimes’ challengers in the Democratic primary. Grimes is the prohibitive favorite.
Many union members helped swell the Grimes cheering section at the 133rd annual Fancy Farm picnic , which features barbecue and politics, both spicy hot.
This year, the Grimes-McConnell-Bevin feud drew hefty coverage from the national media .
This retired history teacher wonders if President Franklin D. Roosevelt inspired a key part of Grimes’ speech.
Reminiscent of FDR’s famous “Martin, Barton and Fish” refrain from 1940, Grimes got her supporters chorusing “Stop now!” (She did likewise at the luncheon and earlier at a big rally in Lexington, Ky.)
Going on 73 years ago, FDR was running for an historic third term. (Grimes could make history, too. If she wins, she would be the first woman to occupy a Senate seat from the Bluegrass State.)
In one of his most memorable stem-winders, Roosevelt made political hay off GOP Reps. Joseph Martin, Bruce Barton and Hamilton Fish.
He tagged the trio as obstructionists bent on thwarting his plans to provide vital military aid for the British early in World War II.
“Martin, Barton and Fish,” Roosevelt intoned again and again in his speech, each time citing examples of their attempts to stymie him. The crowd gleefully chimed in.
At Fancy Farm, Grimes deftly prepared the partisans by declaring that under McConnell, “GOP” meant “gridlock, obstruction and partisanship.” She said he seemed to understand the meaning of just one word, “stop.”
“Well, senator,” she began, “your voting time after time against increasing the minimum wage, all while you increase your pay and quadruple your net worth—stop now!”
The Grimes loyalists immediately took the cue.
“Senator, your empty, empty rhetoric about fighting for Kentucky coal while you vote against its workers and their retirees—stop now!
“And senator, your failing to stand up for the good women of Kentucky when you vote against the Violence Against Women Act, the Lilly Ledbetter Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act—stop now!
“And your failing to realize the importance of labor—that it has lifted literally millions out of poverty—stop now!”
Many Kentuckians who pack union cards think Grimes is the Democrat who will finally “ditch Mitch.”
“Alison’s performance at Fancy Farm showed her poise, charisma and close connection to the working men and women of Kentucky—characteristics not found in the character of Mitch McConnell,” said Bill Londrigan, Kentucky State AFL-CIO president. “If anyone doubted whether Alison was up to the challenge to become the first woman senator from Kentucky and if they doubted her support for Kentucky’s workers, those doubts were dispelled at Fancy Farm.”
Like Londrigan, Kyle Henderson was in the picnic crowd.
“People in Kentucky are fed up with Mitch McConnell and him being an obstructionist,” said Henderson, who helped organize the luncheon. He is building trades president and business manager of Paducah-based Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 184.
“Mitch McConnell has been on a government salary for almost 30 years, and he hasn’t done anything but hurt working people,” said Jeff Wiggins, president of the Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council, president of United Steelworkers ( USW ) Local 9447 and a member of the Kentucky State AFL-CIO Executive Board.
Kip Phillips, Wiggins’ brother Steelworker, said working people “get absolutely nothing out of Mitch McConnell. He is not a people person.” Grimes is, according to Phillips, a USW international vice president at large and assistant to International President Leo Gerard.
McConnell is an absentee senator, said Joe Phelps, a member of the state AFL-CIO executive board and assistant director for AFSCME Council 62 .
You hardly ever see him in Kentucky, and when you go to his office in Washington all you get to see is one of his young aides.
Doris Thornton, of AFSCME Local 4011 in Louisville, said Grimes “will fight for average working citizens like me. I’m a union member, and she’s pro-union.”
AFSCME’s Wanda Mitchell-Smith, also from the Falls City, echoed Thornton.
“Mitch McConnell has been in the Senate for a long time and hasn’t done anything for Kentucky,” said Mitchell-Smith, Council 62’s Kentucky political action representative and state AFL-CIO recording secretary.
Howard Hughes, of Henderson, Ky., business manager of the International Union of Operating Engineers ( IUOE ) Local 181, thinks Grimes is “a grassroots politician who will try to make things better for the working people of Kentucky.”
