Favorite son Charles Booker will be taking on Rand Paul in the November 8 election. Charles should have won in 2020 to run against McConnell, but we took our eyes off Kentucky before the primary was over and he lost. Booker had more voters turn out than Amy McGrath in the 2020 primary, but due to voter suppression and disenfranchisement (we documented it), he didn’t have enough votes at the end of the day. Milquetoast McGrath took on Mitch in the General, only to lose badly. I still believe Charles would have won the General if we’d have given him a chance to debate Mitch for 6 months during a pandemic and a movement for Black lives, but let’s not get into that. That injustice didn’t deter Charles, and he handily won the primary two years later to take on Rand Paul, so soon all can be right with the world.
Well, almost. Sadly, we lost some of the key races where Black women and men were running. Shameka Parrish-Wright put up a strong showing against the favored Craig Greenberg, but in large part due to split Black votes, and the powerful network of dark money and Louisville clout (and an unfair abundance of TV and social media ads), it wasn’t enough. Another disappointment was supposedly progressive ally Morgan McGarvey‘s easy trouncing of Attica Scott.
Unfortunately, Morgan didn’t read the room and he put his knee on the neck of the woman who should have been Kentucky’s next democratic nominee for US Congress, and soon to become the first Black Congresswoman from Kentucky. We almost had one back in Eleanor Jordan. Everyone who was anyone OUTSIDE of Kentucky got behind her, but guess what. Louisville whites couldn’t get behind a Black woman then either, and she lost a seat that should have been hers. The sad thing is, I think Louisville would have gotten behind Attica, but the establishment took away that choice and that chance.
In just the past few days, a very unpopular Mitch McConnell protégé, Black Republican Attorney General, Daniel Cameron, has announced his intention to run for Governor against a very popular incumbent Democrat who saved us from a raging pandemic. Cameron was responsible for the mishandling of the grand jury for Breonna Taylor’s case and a large reason why there is still no #JusticeForBreonna to this day. This leaves the AG seat open. Morgan McGarvey is probably the only person in this state who could win that seat right now, but, unless a miracle happens, he’s in the wrong lane and due to people not knowing their place, it’s even possible BOTH seats could be lost to Republicans. I hope I’m wrong. I still think a Democrat is going to be more likely to listen to our concerns than a Republican, but hey, I thought that last time and McGarvey showed us he was easily misled. Maybe he won’t make the same mistake twice. We’ll have to hope. It will take all of us holding his feet to the fire now that we know what we know.
I was wondering when Yarmuth let McGarvey know he wasn’t planning on running again and in this article that just came out tonight, it says he had one day. McGarvey had a day’s notice to prepare his announcement plans. I dunno. He seemed more than a day’s worth of “ready” and in Yarmuth’s interview he kinda stumbled around with how he know McGarvey was interested in being notified. It still sounds sketchy but I guess we’ll never know. It’s their secret. There’s a lot of those in Kentucky politics. He takes on the winner of the Republican primary in November, which is currently too close to call.
At least Tracy Davis lives to fight another day against Mary Shaw, the judge who signed Breonna Taylor’s death warrant. But it’s a sad testament to how little white Louisville pays attention to who causes harm to the Black community. If Louisville’s progressive whites truly cared about justice, Mary Shaw should not have made it to round two in the non-partisan judgeship race. But the sexual predator protector, as Mike O’Connell referred to on LouisvilleKY.com‘s truth-telling website, who tried to expose the names of minors who were victims of sexual abuse by LMPD Explorer program in 2015 to intimidate them into silence won his bid for reelection to the County Attorney seat. Karl Price would have been our choice, but anyone but Mike is fine by us.
Our biggest surprise win was Sarah Stalker beating out privatizer protector Jonathan Lowe. Lowe was the only #DarkMoneyDem that didn’t make it to the next round. WE only stopped one of the five we identified. I’m not sure how Sarah did it because Lowe had endorsements from all the major labor groups, C-FAIR (LGBTQ+ Fairness) and had SCALA‘s dark money clout behind him. As far as I know, the only endorsement she had was from Dear JCPS. But I know she’s not only been doing the work for years, and as such, had already met a lot of people in the community, but she and her husband also knocked on a lot of doors. We heard reports of Jonathan walking his dog in the park more often than we heard he was seen knocking on doors. It matters.
Unfortunately, Derek Penwell lost his bid against AFSCME leader and JCTA-corruption enabler Sue Foster. Another C-FAIR endorsement that lost. I guess their endorsement just ain’t what it used to be.
A race we didn’t take as strong of a stance on but we are pleased to see the outcome on is Daniel Grossberg beating entrenched Democrat Tom Burch. Burch’s campaign used anti-Semitic rhetoric in a mailer against Grossberg (featured image).
The media did pick up on that story, but they didn’t mention that it was blatantly anti-Semitic, nor did they pick up on the anti-Black rhetoric used by Jewish Congressman John Yarmuth in smearing Attica Scott. But they wasted no time reporting an anti-Semitic story that wasn’t even there, in order to discredit poor Black and West Louisville voters who simply want to stop Greenberg and his dark money backers from gentrifying their neighborhoods. Grossberg (unofficially) beat Burch by just 100 votes, more or less. Burch relied on his name recognition and endorsements from the status quo enablers. Grossberg knocked on doors. Face time matters.
