Crit's New Nutroot Allies Stir Up Liberal Blogs in KY

Crit Luallen has some new allies in her apparent bid to unseat Mitch McConnell: Jonathan Singer of MyDD and Daily Kos. In two separate posts yesterday Kos (Markos Moulitsas Zúniga) and MyDD closed stories about the latest Senate approval ratings with nearly identical calls to action: “If you want to help turn up the heat on McConnell, head over to DraftCrit.com — which is seeking to get Democratic state Auditor Crit Luallen to run for the Senate — to get involved.”

I’ve exchanged communications with one prominent KY liberal web activist and he’s of the opinion that these posts represent nothing less than a coordinated effort by Kentucky Democratic officials and DC liberals to push Stumbo and Horne out of the race:

"What's happening here is that national left-wing bloggers in (likely) conjunction with Chuck Schumer (speculation)… and a cabal in Kentucky Democrats…[have decided] to squeeze out Horne and Stumbo. The national left-wing bloggers are participating in this effort. It's really obvious, too. "

The squeeze job hasn't gone down very well with the folks over at Ditch Mitch KY. They've been cozy with the other potential Senate contenders Andrew Horne and Greg Stumbo. Matt Gunterman, founder of DM-KY swung into action. He blogged about the pro-Crit posts:

“Unfortunately… those big-name bloggers took the good news and managed to alienate needlessly a significant portion of the grassroots in Kentucky with it… everybody here knows that Crit Luallen (D) isn’t the only Democrat considering a run against Mitch McConnell. Attorney General Greg Stumbo (D) and Lt. Col. Andrew Horne (D) are actively doing so, as well. Everybody knows that; it’s been talked about for months now.

And since everybody knows that, that’s what makes the singular focus of Kos and Singer on the draft Luallen movement (which is by no means a bottom-up, grassroots effort; it’s entirely driven by the Kentucky Democratic establishment) a blatant dissing of Stumbo, Horne, and their respective supporters. "

He concluded:

"No-one’s saying that honest discussion and handicapping of the candidates isn’t appropriate, but to ignore that the other candidates are in the race is simple arrogance. All supporters of the other candidates are asking is for a little respect for the Democratic process and for their candidates.

And by offering only implicit disrespect, these national bloggers are doing the budding Kentucky progressive movement no good."

Ever wonder what a shot across the bow looked like on a blog? You’ve just seen it.

So two things come to mind.

First, McConnell supporters can’t help but love the fact that there are already signs of an internecine primary between Horn, Stumbo and Luallen. Wendell Ford likes to say that when Democrats fight you simply get more Democrats. Maybe so, but the idea of a bruising primary that drains their coffers sounds pretty good to me.

Second, I find it interesting that the Crit campaign (assuming this is part of a coordinated effort) is relying so heavily on the nutroots so early. I may be dead wrong on this one, but I can’t imagine that an alliance with folks who propagate anti-Semitism (as Daily Kos has been accused of), take pleasure in seeing American citizens killed in Iraq (Kos, again), and whose overriding mission in life is to end the war in Iraq immediately and call for an instant retreat of all soldiers from the region will play well here in Kentucky.