Charles Booker’s quest to become the first progressive, Black U.S. Senator in Kentucky history may be quixotic. His emphasis on ideals like reproductive rights, income inequality, education, healthcare and the Green New Deal may not appeal to a broad array of Kentuckians.
But Booker deserves your vote because he’s trying to help people, which is more than we can say for incumbent Sen. Rand Paul. He declined to meet with the Herald-Leader editorial board because of a reference in one column to the assault against him by his neighbor. Meanwhile, his idea of leadership is to see how many times he can gig Dr. Anthony Fauci over COVID vaccines or get his wife to make fun of trans kids while filing legislation to hurt them.
It’s long been unclear what Paul actually does for the Commonwealth. The only thing we can thank him for is throwing a tantrum that tanked a federal judgeship in Kentucky sought by Sen. Mitch McConnell. Paul wants to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education and ban labor unions nationally. He’s a libertarian who avidly sponsors bills to make government the arbiter of women’s reproductive healthcare. And that’s the least of his hypocrisy. He pretends to care about veterans, but was one of 11 Republican senators to vote “no” on the PACT Act, which allocates funding to veterans who were exposed to toxic waste pits and Agent Orange, saying it would expand into something too expensive. He’s one of the numerous politicians called out by the White House who voted against the big infrastructure bill last year — a centerpiece of Biden’s agenda — then wrote letters to the administration asking for some of the money to be spent here in Kentucky.
According to CNN, “Paul said he voted against the bill because it typified ‘wasteful spending,’ which would deepen the national debt. Paul wrote 10 different letters petitioning for more of that money coming into Kentucky, including for a community development organization working to expand a riverwalk, improve three stretches of roads, to strengthen a dam, support the revitalization of an old Internal Revenue Service facility in Covington, improve streets in Lexington and modernizing a bridge between northern Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio.”
“Opposition to a spending bill does not always mean opposition to the goal of that spending; opposition to a spending bill can mean opposition to spending that adds to the deficit and is not offset with spending cuts elsewhere,” a Paul spokesman told CNN, trying to rationalize Paul’s action without much success.
Paul once had the courage to criticize President Trump, but now falls in line at every turn, including questioning the results of President Joe Biden’s win. He called the Jan. 6th riots wrong and un-American, but then described the Jan. 6 commission as a partisan witchhunt. He underscores our terrible divisions in petty ways to make political points.
Booker, on the other hand, is trying to bring our state together by emphasizing what we have in common. His “Hood to the Holler” movement has shown us the artificiality of the urban rural divide, how politics have been used to agitate divisions between people who suffer the same poverty, lack of affordable housing, and environmental damages across the state.
“I want to shine a light for people who have felt frustrated and ignored,” he told the Herald-Leader editorial board. “The challenge is no one has listened to them. We talk about what does it mean to have clean water, have a community hospital — what I find is a coalition that’s ready to fight.”
Booker said he hasn’t tried to change people’s minds, but he “meets them where they are,” on the campaign trail, an approach which allows people to talk and find their commonalities.
It is frustrating that the national Democratic establishment has not seen fit to support Booker’s campaign; that brain trust apparently thinks it’s more worthwhile to give millions of dollars to right-wing candidates in Republican primaries instead of helping to boost the message of credible candidates.
Still, Charles Booker continues to fight for the people of Kentucky, and with its endorsement, the Herald-Leader urges every voter to join him. He deserves your vote.
Other Congressional races
While on the topic of the woeful performance of the state and national Democratic parties in Kentucky, the Herald-Leader will not endorse any candidates in the Sixth District race for Congress.
Our incumbent, Rep. Andy Barr, seems most concerned about protecting corporations from “woke” activists who have the audacity to think U.S. companies should pay attention to climate change. By all accounts, Barr has excellent constituent services and he deserves credit for the still coalescing Horse Racing Integrity Act. But it would be better if he spent as much energy on his constituents in the Sixth as he does on those poor, attacked corporations who are currently making record profits under the inflation he blames on President Biden.
It is likewise disgraceful that Barr has constantly bowed to the Trump wing, when the Sixth District is one of the few places in America a Republican could show some integrity and courage in standing up to the lies that permeate the MAGA world.
His opponent, Geoff Young, is a perennial candidate whose support for reproductive rights is commendable amid a slate of more questionable positions, such as abolishing the CIA and ending U.S. support for Ukraine because he thinks the Ukrainian government —whose president is Jewish — is “controlled by Washington and Nazi Ukrainians.” As this page wrote in 2016, Young “has also shown a propensity for confrontation rather than negotiation, resorting to lawsuits against the Kentucky Democratic Party, the Lexington Division of Police and Good Foods Co-Op in different disputes — a history that does not recommend him as a congressman who could reach out to effect legislation.”
A write-in candidate, Randy Cravens, is running on a gun control platform.
That the Kentucky Democratic Party could not be bothered to find and support a more worthy opponent against Barr in what before redistricting was a competitive district is a disgrace. The party may be understaffed and under-financed in a deep red state but it has left the voters of the Sixth District in a terrible place.
BEHIND OUR REPORTING
Why do we endorse?
The Herald-Leader believes the tradition of candidate endorsements enhances interest and participation in the civic process, whether readers agree with the newspaper’s recommendations or not. The paper has unusual access to candidates and their backgrounds, and considers part of its responsibility to help citizens sort through campaign issues and rhetoric.
An endorsement represents the consensus of the editorial board. The decisions have no connection to the news coverage of political races and is wholly separate from journalists who cover those races.
Unendorsed candidates can respond with 250-word letters that will be published as soon as possible.
This story was originally published October 21, 2022 10:45 AM.