Amy McGrath has commercials already blanketing local television attacking her incumbent opponent Mitch McConnell. What she doesn’t have, apparently, is a platform and an agenda. In an interview with WPSD, the “veteran, mother, and Kentuckian” tells a viewer to “stay tuned” when asked what McGrath stands for besides being against Mitch.
“It takes time,” McGrath adds. Yes, but ….
.@AmyMcGrathKY still out there crushing her interviews.
"Your commercial just talks about Mitch. What is your platform?"
"Cool. Okay. Well that's awesome. Stay tuned. Because it takes time."
h/t: @Brianna___Clark at @WPSDLocal6 pic.twitter.com/STSGQBzRQm
— Chet Lemond (@ChetLemond) August 20, 2019
It does take time to build a platform and an agenda, but those are tasks that usually get finished before a campaign runs TV ads. The fact that viewers have this question after seeing McGrath’s campaign ads points to a big communication problem in that regard. You can’t beat something with nothing, especially in Kentucky when the something is the most senior Republican incumbent and the nothing is a first-time Democratic challenger.
To be fair, when one watches the full interview at WPSD, McGrath ticks off a few issues to follow up this answer — health care, jobs, the overall economy, and so on. The problem is that McGrath doesn’t provide any indication that she’s bothered to think deeply on these issues in her answer. McGrath offers nothing but ambiguous platitudes (“every Kentuckian should have health care”) rather than specific policy changes over what McConnell has done. It seems Kentucky voters will have to “stay tuned” for those, too, because … er … they take time.
Even her argument for having what it takes to defeat McConnell is dreadfully short on substance:
Others have tried and failed to unseat McConnell. Here’s how McGrath responded to those who say she won’t get the votes to do it: “People have told me ‘It’s too hard. You’re in a red state. You’re going against the most powerful man in the country. You don’t stand a chance,’ and my response is: You know what, I do believe that so many Kentuckians think like I do and just want change, and I do believe that I can be that change. I’m not perfect, but if I can have a shot — a better shot than lots of people — I have to try.”
If that’s all McGrath can say after several weeks of active campaigning, more time may not produce a whole lot of change for Democrats. This one’s looking more and more like a walkover.
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