A few months ago I thought the U.S. Senate race between McConnell and Lunsford was going to be the most entertaining election of the fall. I thought Lunsford would really go after McConnell which would force McConnell to become creative. Especially in a year that was "supposed to favor Democrats".
Two things have changed the landscape since then. First of all, Palin's selection as VP candidate has charged up the Republican base that was looking despondent this year. Stir in Obama's weakness as a candidate, and the winds of fortune are changing. McCain appears to have gained the lead.
Secondly, the Democrats have refused to address the domestic drilling issue while the Republicans have been standing strong on the issue. McCains surge in the pools and strength on drilling have caused the Republican brand to rebound. The generic congressional ballot has tightened considerably. They are returning to more traditional levels. It is not inconceivable to think that if McCain wins that the Republicans might be able to retake the House and lose only a couple of seats in the Senate.
What does that have to do with the Kentucky Senate race? I think Lunsford needed a Democratic wind if he had any chance of defeating McConnell. Now that the wind seems to have died out, I imagine it is going to be nearly impossible to win.
On top of that, the race has turned dull. Lunsford is running a boring campaign and not seriously challenging McConnell. Take the recent debate between the two candidates.
Lunsford sidestepped McConnell's questions about the United States' approach to the continuing conflict between Russia and Georgia, as well as how to contain the remaining "rogue states" with nuclear ambitions, Iran and North Korea. McConnell then moved to brand Lunsford as unprepared. "I think it's pretty obvious that Bruce doesn't even have an average newspaper knowledge of this issue," he said after Lunsford answered each question by talking about how the United States had exhausted its resources in Iraq.
McConnell then answered his own question about how the country should intercede in the Russia-Georgia conflict. He said the United States should offer financial aid to Georgia, stall Russia's membership in the World Trade Organization and bring Georgia into NATO.
"Because the best way to deal with the Russians, if they want to have an empire again, is to draw a line so it's very, very clear that you don't go across it," he said.
It seems to me that if you are going to run for the U.S. Senate that you should at least be familiar with the important issues of the day. Of course Lunsford tried to explain away his ignorance on the specific issues by talking generic themes.
"He wants to talk about two or three trees. I want to talk about the forest being burned down," Lunsford said. "You can't avoid the fact that we've got an economic crisis, we've got a health care crisis, we've got a debt crisis, we've got an energy crisis. We don't have the options we've had in the past because as a country, we're not militarily strong and we're not economically strong."
Several times, Lunsford argued that the "process" in Washington was the "bigger question" — a signal that after months of trying different lines of attack against McConnell, Lunsford might finally have settled on a central theme.
What the hell does he mean by the process? Sounds to me like he doesn't understand any of the issues and is trying to hide behind some generic bland message. At the end of the day, it appears he doesn't have a message that will get people excited. A "not" McConnell campaign will excite the hard core Democratic base in this state, but that will only get you 35% to 40% of the vote.
We haven't had much polling on this race either. The latest Survey USA poll shows that McConnell's approval ratings are down from 57% to 44%. I would expect McConnell's approval rating to go down with all of the negative advertising both campaigns have run. The only problem with this data point is it doesn't mean much without seeing Lunsford's approval ratings. I imagine his are probably down as well and he was in the low 40's to begin with.
The only other data we have is a McConnell's internal poll. It shows that McConnell's approval rating at 52% while Lunsford's is at 30%. Without releasing the internal's of the polls, it is hard to tell if their is any bias. I am guessing that the truth is somewhere between the two data points. Even if we split the difference and say McConnell's approval rating is at 48%. That still means that Lunsford's is down in the 30's. If so then it is fair to say that McConnell probably holds at least a 10-12 point lead in the polls. Unless Lunsford can articulate a vision instead of running as the Anti-Mitch, I doubt this race will tighten any between now and November.
