What The Left Is Saying About Trey Grayson

I think it is a fair characterization to say that PageOneKentucky is a left leaning blog.  While I do believe that its publisher, Jacob Payne, writes what he believes, rather than what the Dems want him to write, nevertheless I'd say the overall perspective of this very successful blog comes from the left.

With that in mind listen to the observations he made about Trey Grayson today.  And when you do, think about the prospect of Trey running in a republican primary.

From PageOneKentucky:

1.   Trey shouldn’t run for Senate this go-round because he isn’t as experienced as Jack Conway and just can’t beat him in a general election.

2.   If he runs against him, Grayson risks splitting his own support base in half and cutting his fundraising by nearly 50%. Because both he and Conway share support and financial bases. Politically, they’re on the same side of nearly every issue.

3.   And with Grayson in the beginning of his political career, is it wise to put himself up against such a machine that consists of some of his own people? [NOTE: Thats the Conway machine, I think, not the Bunning machine]

4.   Whether you like him or not, Trey is a rising star in the Commonwealth. We, as a state, can’t afford to lose something like that. And running him against the star of the Democratic Party would only serve to hurt Kentucky.

Let me summarize, Trey lacks experience, shares his support base with democrat Jack Conway, is politically on the same side as the democrat on "nearly every issue", by running against the democrat he would be putting himself up against "his own people" and running against the star of the Democratic Party, as a republican we presume, would "hurt Kentucky".

Trey, my friend, heed this advice: to ever be considered a viable Republican you need to counter this growing perception immediately.  The new battle cry of the GOP should be "Remember McCain."

Comments

[Noah Meeks]

forgot my name on the previous post:
Noah Meeks

Trey should not run against Bunning for at least 3 reasons:

He will lose. If he runs against Bunning in the primary, he will lose and turn a sizeable portion of the GOP against him for good. Even if he wins, a divided GOP will not support him enthusiastically, and young elitists in Louisville will still vote for the Democrat.

He has not shown that he is a conservative on many federal issues. I'm not at all suggesting he is not a conservative, I'm just saying he hasn't proven himself. He needs to come out swinging on traditional conservative issues, as well as some new ones like philosophical environmentalism masquerading as science, socialized health care, federal deficit spending, and corporate welfare. Now advancing these causes is a favorite pasttime of the Louisville elitists, so taking a strong stand will not endear him to the Jack Conway and Jonathan Miller (read: wanna-be elitist) crowd. But they will earn him the respect and support of Kentuckians everywhere.

If he does seek higher office, time is on his side. There are also several statewide offices for which he would be a formidable contender in 2011. His running for those would preserve full support of him from the KY GOP as well as his own base of supporters. After serving for 6 more years in statewide office, or returning to work (something most politicians haven't gotten enough of) in the private sector, he'd be a top-tier candidate for Senate when Jim Bunning does retire.