RACE TRACKING: SPECTACULAR BID?
We must look pathetic - 20 reporters arid photographers waiting outside a
Earlier in the day, young volunteers in royal-blue "A14" shirts pounced upon anyone with a reporter's notebook, sharing a version of insider goods: "Off the record, there's going to he a parade to welcome
So here we are, waiting. Today marks the 134th
"Business professors tend to support conservative candidates. Liberal arts support liberals," one woman says.
"Well, we can do away with liberal arts," her friend replies. "These sandwiches are good."
It's 11:50. Still no parade. Sensing our salty, weeping pores, metallic country bugs nip at our brows and ankles. "Sweat bees," a bald reporter moans, swatting his forehead. I lend my bug spray to a writer from D.C. publication The Hill. Though no one says it, there's a collective frown among us: Why are we waiting for this? Because it's something. Something isn't substance, but it's something.
At 11:55, a crowd emerges up the road. Three horns and a snare drum play "When the Saints Go Marching In." Grimes,
"
Grimes and her entourage end up in an ashy hut with a long yellow table. Men are hacking into slabs of pork and mutton. Grimes dons black rubber gloves and a blue apron. She pushes her thick auburn-brown hair between her shoulder blades and picks up a meat cleaver. "What time did y'all get here this morning?" she asks the workers, before chopping at meat lying in front of her. The former college sorority president is a toucher, a hugger, a close-talker - a smile and squeeze for willing takers. "You won't find anyone more sincere or more down to earth," says Grimes' oldest of five sisters,
Grimes changes to a sleeveless navy dress with four large buttons down the front for her
"And perhaps the less you say, (one) can infer that that person believes what I believe." Do voters buy it? Some do. I meet a tobacco-chewing, unemployed machinist who has latched onto Grimes because he says Grimes has "fresh ideas" about the economy. But a lot of voters may want to know more about who they're committing to for the next six years. Next month, when Grimes will start to fall behind in many polls, her campaign will release an internal poll - the one meant to revive and refresh her chances. It shows that only 38 percent of voters view Grimes' job performance as secretary of state as favorable, just above McConnell's 32 percent job-approval mark, a number she jabbed at
Grimes 101.
Her advantage: She's not Mitch McConnell at a time when America holds
Her problem: Grimes is running as a Democrat in a state that hates Obama. In the 2012 election, Obama won only four of
Her resume: In 2001 Grimes graduated from
The landscape: The 2010
Her campaign song: Seems to be
Her team: 1) A petite blond 20-something named
Her signature move: Dropping in names of folks she's met on the trail. For example, during
A Grimes stump speech goes something like this:
One of us represents the
Grimes is the third of the five sisters. All have names beginning with the letter "A." As in many families with a cluster of same-sex siblings, each earned a label. Abby was the social butterfly. Alissa was the dedicated equestrian, tending to rescued horses the family kept on their farm. Alison was the focused one. She was organized, quiet, driven, competitive, be it in school or ballet, to which she dedicated much of her childhood.
Ask those who know Lundergan well about the now 67-year-old, and they often chuckle and hesitate with a "how do I say this?" pause. A few of the descriptions: an old poi, glad-handing, fast-talking.
As a public speaker, Lundergan has a preacher quality to him - flapping arms and a decibel that makes his "Ps" pop at the microphone. In a conversation with Grimes' sister Alissa about her sibling's decision to follow her dad into public office, Tibe mentioned that the family had seen the "good and bad side of politics." When Grimes was 10 years old, her father was convicted on ethics charges after his catering company was awarded a lucrative no-bid state contract. He was forced to resign from the
Lundergan's blue-collar upbringing and emphasis on loyalty earned him a powerful friend in
It's a humid
The rain ends by lunch, and Grimes arrives at the
Before winding through hundreds, maybe thousands, of picnickers, Grimes makes time for a tall, wiry man grazing the terrain with a cocksure air and nice gray slacks. A photographer whispers to me, "
Grimes, wide grin intact, slips into stump-speak. Her light blue eyes never lose contact with Cameron or whomever she's talking to. "Well, we have 64 more days to make sure Kentuckians know all the wrong votes Mitch McConnell has taken left hardworking Kentuckians behind ... promises to millionaires and billionaires ...
Grimes' reputation for avoiding the press isn't accurate if taken literally. She allows reporters to ask her questions. She'll often cock her head gently to the right and answer, sort of "She's basically following the Mitch McConnell model of, when you do take questions that you don't want to answer, you fall hack on your talking points," says
At the zoo, Grimes begins to work the crowd. I lose count of all the hands she shakes and photos she poses for. Cell phones and cameras keep popping out of pockets. There must be a couple thousand images of Grimes from this one hour at the zoo. "You ready fin a fun day?" she asks him and her, this group and that. After a few teen girls go in for a hug ("I love that!" Grimes says. "I need all the hugs I can get!"), Grimes spots an infant in a gray-and-pink stroller. She picks up the chubby bundle in a white onesie. The baby's father, a slight man with thin strips of facial hair, smiles next to Grimes for a photo. As she walks away, he looks at a woman next to him and says, "I think I've seen her on TV."
Grimes attempts to pluck a stand-up bass with a bluegrass band. She hoists another baby into her arms. She poses for a picture in front of a
At one point Grimes bends down to a couple,
"Hi, guys! Good to see you! I heart teachers too. Thanks, guys," Grimes says.
Frank's a libertarian. Heather's an independent with conservative leanings. "I vote for whoever is going to do what they need to do," she says. "I know what (McConnell) goes for but nut really what she goes for."
Grimes is still a relatively new face to
"Yarmuth! John!" Grimes claps her hands before squeezing the Democratic Congressman's shoulders. "Look at you!" she says. He's dressed in neon-orange running shoes, jeans and an orange polo. Together, they continue through the crowd. Back before Grimes was chosen as McConnell's Democratic opponent, Yarmuth championed
Since then, Yarmuth has helped bring Grimes up to speed on national and international issues. "She's incredibly bright - very quick," he says.
A few minutes later, I run into Grimes' campaign manager,
As Hurst scrolls through his phone, I ask for an interesting nugget about Grimes. One that few know. "She loves red Swedish Fish," he says.
Grimes' friends talk effusively about her. She's in this race because she longs to make a difference, they say. Law colleagues bring up her pro-bono work with domestic violence victims. State Rep.
I had asked way hack at
I'm waiting in a small conference room with perspiring pitchers of water, deep-green carpeting and heavy maroon drapes. Norton, the spokesperson, sits next to me.
Someone knocks at the door. "We're here," says the tall security man. Norton rushes away. I had read that Grimes gave just over seven minutes to lime. I scramble to prioritize questions. Do I waste time on policy questions, I've heard the stock answers to before? I'm curious about the person, not the politician. Start with fluff?
"Hi!" Grimes says, smiling as she walks in. "How are you?" She shakes my hand. I notice her glossy gray nail polish. And the ladybug pin fastened to her white blazer. The grip isn't as firm as I was expecting.
I learn she has six nephews and nieces and a 100-pound Bernese Mountain Dog named Nala who's now eight years old. She met her husband in high school. They went to her senior prom together and danced to
I ask about the pressure of this campaign. (The race will only get increasingly nasty as
My mind wanders a bit. I've heard that "blood, sweat and tears" line somewhere before. 'The
I ask about what it was like growing up in the Lundergan family. "When we were younger, we would go from my grandparents' clothing store (Case's Men's Wear) to my grandmother, who worked with the sheriffs department. Walking downtown back when downtowns were obviously vibrant" - her voice hardens - "as they should be to this day, if we had someone who fought for
My mind wanders a bit. Norton tells me I have two minutes left. "Do you believe burning coal leads to climate change?" I ask.
"I do believe in climate change. I do believe in the realities of climate change, unlike Mitch McConnell," she says. "I think we have to have a balanced approach ... we have to have somebody who goes and fights for the good jobs that we have in this state, including the coal jobs, but somebody who wants to make sure we have a diversified economy and a pathway forward."
I want to ask about income inequality, abortion (she's pro-choice) and gay marriage (she supports it but with cagey language). I want to ask in a really casual, chilling-with-a-cold-pint kind of way: "So, how about Obama?"
Norton wraps up our rime. Sixteen minutes 20 seconds.
"Favorite movie?" I ask.
"Shawshank Redemption," Grimes says, slamming her hands on the table. "Favorite book?"
"Oh, that's hard," she says, getting up to leave the room.
"One you're reading now?"
"
On the morning of
By the time Grimes reaches the library, her supporters have neatly piled glazed doughnuts into a basket, bundled orange daisies into a vase and placed Sweet'n Low in glass dishes. About 60 locals pile into a room in the library lined with arrowheads in glass cases. Coffee plunges into Styrofoam cups. A reporter from
This is an outlying county Grimes could theoretically win. While the latest polls have shown her getting hammered in rural western and eastern
Outside the library, compact, one-story brick ranches tuck into gentle rolling hills; single-story government buildings boast lawns as tidy as a cadet's buzz cut. An older brunette with a blue Grimes shirt and bright pink lips wipes doughnut glaze from the corner of her mouth and informs me that if I went closer to the lakes, I'd see wealth. "We have a lot of people moving here from
Lifelong
Grimes' speech is fairly standard, executed loudly as she stands in shiny beige heels and a black dress, one dump of hair over her left shoulder - the way she wears it in nearly all ads and on all campaign stops. Grimes elevates her tone when she eludes to an audio tape of a speech McConnell made to the Koch brothers, the billionaire industrialists who have pumped money into Republican campaigns. On the tape, McConnell vows to block votes on boosting the minimum wage and extending unemployment if he becomes majority leader. "He'll choose the millionaires and billionaires," Grimes starts. And when a cell phone rings, she shifts. "And that's him calling right now because he's asking for your vote!"
The crowd laughs, applauds.
"Don't listen to the outside polls out of
"So,
"Yes!"
The Herald Ledger's Foust says Grimes is well-liked in this county. She visited it during her secretary of state campaign. In the next few weeks, she'll keep circling the state. Meanwhile, national pundits will grapple with what she's doing wrong. They'll tell her to hype up the 500,000 Kentuckians who now have health insurance due to the Affordable Care Act. They'll applaud an ad that shows her skeet shooting in a field and declaring, "I'm not
Notebook in hand, Foust walks up to Grimes, bypassing
"Oh, is that what Grimes was talking about when she was telling you something about the EPA and farming?" I ask Foust, having overheard part of the interview.
"She talked about farming," Foust says, smiling. "But I didn't really ask about farming."
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