Sunday, 3 February 2008
McConnell vs ???
The filing deadline has passed. We now know who the Democratic challengers to McConnell are. Let's break down the top three candidates and handicap the race.
Andrew Horne - Horne is a great candidate on paper... for 2006. His biggest issue, the war in Iraq, like I predicted has faded into the background as more pressing domestic issues take center stage. His 4th quarter financial numbers are not that promising. Can he raise the nearly million dollars he will need to be competitive in the May primary? Even if he raises the money, it may be too late. By the time he will be able to seriously engage on the battlefield he will be way behind Lunsford and Fischer in advertising. I think his message will just get drowned out by the others.
He is going to have to run a much much much better campaign than he ran in 2006's congressional primary where he got trounced by Yarmuth!. I don't like his chances of making it out of the primary. Even if he does, will he be able to raise enough money for the DNC to consider him a serious challenge to McConnell? He will need the extra DNC money to have any shot at all.
Greg Fischer - Fisher is a wealthy businessman who is running in his first campaign. That is an awfully big stage to jump onto for his first time. He is starting with zero organization but does have a big pot of his own money to help overcome those obstacles. His best hope is to run as the anyone but Lunsford candidate in the primary. He must rally the disaffected Democrats who don't like Lunsford.
If he makes it out of the primary, he is going to have a tall task in the Fall. He is an unvetted and untested candidate going up against arguably the greatest Kentucky politician ever. Will he be able to keep his head above water in the general election?
Bruce Lunsford - Lunsford starts the race in the lead for three reasons. First he has the most state wide name recognition of all the Democratic contestants having run in last year's Democratic primary. Second, he can self finance his campaign making sure he has the resources to run a statewide effort. Third, he has gotten the tacit endorsement of Gov Beshear.
Like the others in the race, he has never won a Democratic primary. His biggest challenge will be to win over the Democratic party faithful that he has previously angered. Can he cobble together a winning coalition to make it through the primary? When will his walk in closet full of skeletons be opened to the public? Lunsford while being the best organized is also the biggest risk of the Democratic candidates this fall.
Kentucky is a red state and will probably remain so this year. At this point, I can't imagine that either Hillary or Obama will win Kentucky this fall. They are just too liberal for this state. While they may both be moderately successful in the urban areas, they will be crushed in the rural parts of the state. Why is this relevant to the Senatorial race? For one simple fact. Whoever the Democratic opponent to McConnell is, they will have to do better than the Democratic presidential candidate in this state. Can Horne do it? I don't think he will have the resources to do it. Can Fisher do it? That is a tough task to ask a political neophyte to accomplish. Can Lunsford do it? I seriously doubt it. He has to many Democrats activists who dislike him to create a November surge.
We will see how the landscape changes over the next couple of months.
