Last night, Senate Democrats stayed up all night to talk about climate change and to attack Kentucky coal. The Obama White House “absolutely” supported Senate Democrats’ anti-coal efforts. Still quiet on her liberal friends’ talk-a-thon is Alison Lundergan Grimes.
Grimes continues to walk a tightrope: she tries to keep Kentuckians satisfied with her empty, vapid, and verbatim-repeated statements while simultaneously trying to keep campaign cash rolling in from environmental activists and Barack Obama’s liberal allies.
But her true colors are beginning to show, despite her best efforts to conceal them.
Grimes to be “more aggressive” champion of anti-coal cause after election
According to environmental activist Sarah Lynn Cunningham, however, Grimes has already made her political calculation. Grimes’ campaign reassured Cunningham that that Grimes would be “more aggressive in fighting for a green agenda,” which liberal environmentalists favor, after the election. WFPL’s Phillip Bailey wrote,
Cunningham told WFPL a Grimes campaign official recently told her that the first-term secretary of state would be more forthright on legislative steps to combat pollutants once McConnell was defeated in the fall.
Environmental activist: Grimes “can’t tell the public the truth”
Before the election, however, Grimes has frustrated environmental activists, because despite her private assurances, she has not publicly embraced their agenda. Cunningham said of Grimes’ refusal to articulate publicly her embrace of the anti-coal agenda:
“It’s really disappointing to me that a candidate for the U.S. Senate can’t get in touch with reality any better than this and can’t tell the public the truth.”
Confusing positions and cut-and-paste statements
Grimes’ disingenuous public statements and her private comments to environmentalists must keep her campaign staff on their heels. Aside from a poll-tested statement, nothing else can explain why the campaign sent the exact same statement to a reporter within a six-month period. WFPL’s Bailey reported:
WFPL asked Grimes campaign spokeswoman Charly Norton if her candidate supported tonight’s event or if a Senator Grimes would participate. The campaign provided an unclear—if familiar—statement….That message is a verbatim copy to what Grimes aides told WFPL six months ago when asked about the Environmental Protection Agency, climate change, and the burning of fossil fuels.
