In Kentucky Senate debate, both McConnell, Grimes duck a big question

In a debate Monday in the Kentucky Senate race, Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes again refused to answer whether she voted for President Obama, while incumbent Sen. Mitch McConnell brushed past a question about climate change

|
Pablo Alcala/The Lexington Herald-Leader/AP
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky and Democratic opponent, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, rehearse with host Bill Goodman before their appearance on "Kentucky Tonight" television broadcast live from KET studios in Lexington, Ky., Monday.

She did it again. And he did, too. In Monday’s first-and-only debate in the marquee Kentucky race for US Senate, incumbent Republican Mitch McConnell and Democrat challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes each ducked a high-profile question from the moderator.

Of course, politicians dodge questions all the time. The question about this evasion is: What’s the political calculus behind it, and will it hurt them?

Let’s start with Ms. Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of state. On Friday, a video went viral of her refusing – four times – to answer a question about whether she voted for President Obama. It was put to her during an interview with the editorial board of The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky.

Senator McConnell equates Grimes with the president, who is very unpopular in Kentucky. In the newspaper interview, she dances around the simple question, saying the election isn’t about the president but about jobs, and that she was a delegate in 2008 for Hillary Rodham Clinton

She was ridiculed from the left to the right, and the left-leaning host of NBC's "Meet the Press," Chuck Todd, said she “disqualified herself.”

On Monday, she put a bit more meat on her answer, explaining that as secretary of state in charge of elections, she has to stand up for the right to a secret ballot. “If I as chief election official … don’t stand up for that right, who in Kentucky will?” she asked KET television moderator Bill Goodman.

In the past, Grimes has said she voted for Mrs. Clinton in the 2008 primary. The downside of revealing her vote now is that her words can be used in a McConnell ad against her.

“Grimes apparently has made the calculation that it’s better to not answer the question than it is to answer it and have the words ‘I voted for Obama’ used against her in a seven-figure television ad buy,” said Courier-Journal political reporter Joseph Gerth in an e-mail.

Is that going to hurt her?

Some say, probably not. This campaign is full of blaring negative noise on both sides. Her evasions were obvious, but it’s also assumed that she voted for Mr. Obama. She was an Obama delegate in 2012, and she comes from a high-profile Democratic family. Average viewers might wonder instead why a question is being asked that everyone already knows the answer to.

“Sometimes candidates get a question where there is no winning answer, and they are better off just letting it ride,” says Stephen Voss, a political scientist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.

One could say the same thing for a much-anticipated McConnell duck on a question about climate change – relevant in a state that relies on the coal industry for electricity and jobs. In the past, the senator has remarked, “I’m not a scientist,” so he can’t delve into climate change's causes.

When asked on Monday whether he stands by his “not a scientist” position and whether he believes in even discussing climate change, the senator brushed past the question.

“There are a bunch of scientists who feel that this is a problem,” he answered. But the main thing to understand is that his job is “to fight for coal jobs in our state and this administration has destroyed 7,000 of them.”

McConnell's political calculus is similar to Grimes's. He “has decided that not answering whether climate change is manmade is better than siding against the fossil fuel industry that has contributed millions to his political committees, or siding with climate-change deniers,” says Mr. Gerth.

Some observers think this deflection doesn’t matter much, either. The reason is that the two candidates are both pro-coal, so “this isn’t a voting issue,” says Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. 

“The whole question of climate gets ignored because they’re both embracing coal,” Mr. Cross explains.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to In Kentucky Senate debate, both McConnell, Grimes duck a big question
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Decoder/2014/1014/In-Kentucky-Senate-debate-both-McConnell-Grimes-duck-a-big-question
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe