Video: Say, remember when Mitch McConnell was an endangered incumbent?

Democrats once considered Mitch McConnell a good target in the 2014 elections. With a relatively low personal approval rating and Barack Obama transcendent in the last national election, there seemed to be enough change in the air that even an entrenched Minority Leader could be endangered in a deep-red state.  After the collapse of a celebrity candidacy in Ashley Judd’s brief flirtation, though, suddenly no Democrat wants to risk it (via Jim Geraghty):

Attorney General Jack Conway. Former state Auditor Crit Luallen and her successor, Adam Edelen. Lt. Gov. Jerry Abramson and former Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo.

All are Democrats considering a run for governor in 2015. And not one is interested in running instead to unseat U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell next year.

Party officials and political observers cite myriad reasons Democratic leaders are having trouble finding a candidate they believe is capable of taking on McConnell — even though they say polling shows this is the most vulnerable the Republican has been in a generation.

Those reasons include McConnell’s well-funded, take-no-prisoners campaign style, the damage a loss could do to a candidate’s career — and the belief that they may accomplish more in the governor’s mansion.

Eventually, Democrats will find a candidate, and I’d bet it will be Grimes, even though she’s obviously not responding with a great deal of enthusiasm at the moment.  Two candidates are already on the ballot, neither with any experience in elected office or much money.  If Grimes wants to get into the race, she’ll need to do it soon to start raising the cash she’ll need for the primary, let alone the general election.  McConnell already has $13.5 million in the bank, and probably won’t have to spend much of it on the primary — and he still has more than a year left to raise money.

If Judd had jumped in the race, Democrats would have nationalized the effort and raised a ton of money from Hollywood to fund the effort.  Now, however, they have to decide whether it’s worth it to spend money trying to wrest away a Senate seat from a highly competent and well-funded incumbent, or to spend their time and effort trying to protect their own red-state incumbents in the midterms.  Small wonder Kentucky Democrats want to run for almost any other office than the US Senate in 2014.