(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



In KY, Democrats Failed To Stop A Russian Loving "Democrat"From Becoming the KY-6th Nominee. [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']

Date: 2022-11-26

Did you know that Kentucky State Democrats could not stop a man who backed Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine from getting the primary nod to run in the 6th Congressional District? I admit that I didn’t pay attention because I was busy looking at races outside of Kentucky. I have a cynical view of my fellow Kentuckians for a myriad of reasons, but I want to introduce you to Geoff Young the Democratic Party’s nominee to KY-6th in 2022. And what it says about this man who got the nomination should tell you how moribund the Kentucky State Democratic Party is.

Perennial political candidate Geoff Young is the Democratic nominee for Kentucky’s 6th Congressional district, but the state party and top elected official, Gov. Andy Beshear, say they won’t support him. He’ll face Republican incumbent Rep. Andy Barr during this year’s General Election in November. Young is a retired state engineer and has battled with the Kentucky Democratic Party for years, accusing the organization of rigging primary elections against him. He’s filed several lawsuits against the party and top Democratic figures, none of which advanced very far in the courts system. Recently, he made controversial statements supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Young posted a conversation on his campaign website in which he says the Ukrainian Army is dominated by Nazis, repeating propaganda Russian President Vladimir Putin has used to justify the country’s invasion. He defended the statement during an interview on Thursday. “My motto from now until November is, unlike Andy Barr, I will never vote to send weapons to Nazis. That should be a very popular position in America,” Young said.

This guy has run for office for the LAST TEN YEARS, and he finally got “lucky” and beat out a high school teacher by 1,000 votes. Once upon a time, Democrats tried to find some candidates to flip the 6th District. Amy McGrath was the great white hope back in 2018.

But it appears that after Republican redistricting and removing a Democratic city from the 6th that Kentucky Democrats decided not to support anyone in the primary.

So we got a guy who thinks that there are NAZIS in Ukraine and vowed to cut off aid to the Ukrainians. And the state Democrats know who Young is because he has camped outside Democratic Headquarters in Frankfort and screamed at Governor Andy Beshear and his son, “one of the criminals has arrived.” And he’s also filed a number of frivolous lawsuits against the Democratic Party because he thinks they have denied him his chance to run for office.

The animosity between Young and the Democratic Party is so bad that Governor Beshear and the other Democrats said, “No WAY do we support this guy!” And that was just the beginning. From what I have seen of Beshear, he rarely makes anything personal. However, when Beshear said that Young needs help and this run wasn’t going to help him any, Young took this as Beshear saying he was “mentally ill.”

With such a winner, you can see why Republican Congressman Andy Barr was reelected. Again. And again.

As a reminder to those outside of Kentucky, Democrats only control the governorship and have one congressional district. And that’s it. Republicans control the legislature and all the other major statewide offices.

I bring this story to anyone who takes the time to read it to point out that many in Kentucky say that Democrats are doomed because Kentucky is a conservative state. Despite my cynicism, I think that is a cop out. Kentucky was dominated by Democrats, and it was only a a good day with the stars and planets in alignment that you had moderate Democrats in charge. The kind phrase for this type of political tilt was “center right” to describe Kentucky Democrats.

In other words, lots of conservative Democrats ran the state government and dominated the federal offices.

The problem is that Kentucky Democrats let the party organizations and GOTV efforts die. And the head of the Kentucky Democrats was just a guy who showed up to collect a paycheck and do nothing else. Once upon a millenia ago, being a precinct captain meant you might have gotten some pay, or it was a good way to start to work your way up in the party structure. Now, those offices are empty of people, at least when it comes to Kentucky Democrats.

So the moral of this story is that it really is the tale of 1) the good old boys who ran a political party apparatus into the ground and 2) proving Howard Dean correct in that to win you have to at least SHOW UP.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/26/2138377/-In-KY-Democrats-Failed-To-Stop-A-Russian-Loving-Democrat-From-Becoming-the-KY-6th-Nominee

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.