A rough week for Grimes

Who took the biggest slap in the campaign face this week? Alison Lundergan Grimes. Who then hosted the No. 2 powerhouse in American politics? Alison Lundergan Grimes. And who was the event really for? Not Alison Lundergan Grimes.

{mosads}The much-coveted Hillary Rodham Clinton appearance came at a tough moment for Grimes, the day after national Democrats dumped her, giving up hope and pulling money from her Senate campaign to save other candidates. Should he win on Nov. 4, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R), who at times has seen Grimes inch awfully close to him in the polls, will likely remember it as the moment he could finally breathe easily.

Clinton swept in to a well-attended rally of more than 4,000 people and basked in the love of Kentucky Democrats, who helped her best then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in their bitter 2008 primary campaign in the Bluegrass State by a stunning 49 points. Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of state, is a family friend of the Clintons because her father Jerry Lundergan is a fixture in Kentucky Democratic politics and a longtime friend of former President Bill Clinton, the No. 1 powerhouse in American politics, who has already twice campaigned for Grimes.

It matters not that the race is considered a lost cause by Democrats. Hillary is running for president, and her husband won Kentucky in both of his 1992 and 1996 elections. The state then went for Republicans ever since then and President Obama is hideously unpopular there. Blessedly for Democrats, healthcare reform and the state exchange are popular in Kentucky. Then there is the matter of Sen. Rand Paul (R). The state’s junior senator is happy to admit that he is running for president and is the only Republican who has gone after the Clintons, and Hillary in particular, with gusto. Hillary will be taking shots at him before long, because she must.

Notice, too, that Hillary completed her whole speech without ever mentioning McConnell by name. Her old Senate colleague could be majority leader, or minority leader again, if she is elected in 2016. Always thinking ahead, she is.

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