Hey, Look At This Extra Money Democrats Found Laying Around For Alison Lundergan Grimes

So there is an election? In, like, two weeks? And it's sort of important -- because ALL elections are important,duh-- but there is a very good chance that this election will give Republicans control of the Senate so they can finallyfinallyimpeach President Obama, repeal the Affordable Care Act, and require every schoolchild who is not being homeschooled by soon-to-be-retired Rep. Michele Bachmann to sing "Jesus Loves Me" every morning before reading the Bible for biology class.

Or ... Maybe not?

A week ago, Democrats were basically closing up shop, at least in the Kentucky race for US Senate, where it was looking like Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes was not going to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who isnota scientist butisa turtle, after all. The Very Serious Media had already declared Grimes "disqualified" because she refused to say whether she voted for President Obama because that is the media's job, obviously. And Boy Wonder Luke Russert stamped his feet and asked this big boy question: "After Grimes' major gaffe, if you're an outside Dem money group, does it make sense to stay in KY?"

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee obviously took little Luke's rhetorical question to heart and said, "Nope, Luke, you are right, we are outta here!" (Also too, Grimes hasn't really had what election experts call "a lead" in the polls, and she has run what some other election experts call "a really bad campaign," so it's possible professional Democrats were making decisionsnotbased on Luke's unsolicited advice, but nah, that's crazy talk, all his daddy's friends tell him how smart he is, so that's probably exactly how it went down.)

Except now, the Democrats are back:  

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee plans to go back on the air in Kentucky after the party has been encouraged by new polls suggesting the race against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is within reach.

The party committee is reserving $650,000 in airtime to boost Alison Lundergan Grimes after reviewing recent internal and public polling, a DSCC official told POLITICO. The polling, the source says, suggested that independent voters are moving in the Democrat’s direction.

We have a number of questions about this. Like, for example: huh? We are just going to put on our little nerd hats for a moment to try to make sense of this before we get all "Yee haw, there's a chance in Kentucky after all!" We are studying the polls, like a bunch of nerds, and we are not seeing some huge Advantage: Alison. Unless the DSCC has some super secret internal polling that is completely different from all the other polling and shows a huge Advantage: Alison advantage, but then, we do not want to be like wingnut doofuses who say, "Well, when you unskew the numbers just so and take out the voters who aren't voting for us, we win!" Because we are not wingnut doofuses, and also we believe in math.

Also too, unless we snoozed through some news, there was no Big Moment in Kentucky to dramatically change the race. Like, say, in 2012, when Republicans had the Indiana Senate seat locked up like a chastity belt, because Indiana, until Republican Richard Mourdock gaffedso hard-- but not in a disqualifying way, by media standards, because Republicans are never disqualified -- by saying that rape babies are a gift from God, which did not go over so well actually. And then all of a sudden, it was game ON, and the Democrats were like, "Oh hey, check it out, there's a state called Indiana, and we should go there and win!" And they did, and everyone lived happily ever after, the end.

But that hasn't happened in Kentucky. McConnell has not literally farted in a punchbowl that we are aware of, and while we know he holds all the same positions as those Republicans who've lost their races for saying Really Stupid Shit, he's at least been clever enough not to say that stuff out loud.

So what gives? We are thinking a) Democrats were totally head-faking last week, because they wanted to make Mitch feel nice and relaxed so they could swoop back in and knock him off his game; b) Democrats are head-faking now because they still don't think they can win in Kentucky, but aw heck, they'll mess with Mitch anyway, because screw that guy; c) there really is a super secret unskewed poll that shows Grimes can win Kentucky after all, YEE HAW!

We are going to take off our nerd cap now, and choose "c" because it makes us happy, and also, we've never been been all that impressed by Democratic efforts at head-faking before, so YEE HAW!

Also, we feel like watching this again, because WE SAID YEE HAW.

[ Politico ]