From Forward Kentucky: This Ain't a Slam Dunk'

Thanks to Bruce Maples of Forward Kentucky for letting us post this subscriber-only item. We think it is an important cautionary tale. Click here for the You Tube version.

I'm excited! Are you excited? Great! But remember this: It ain't a slam dunk.

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Hello there. This is going to be a short Bruce’s Take, and I’m not in my normal setting of my office with my nice picture of Hunter S. Thompson behind me, but I thought it was important to do a quick recording, a quick video on something that I think is timely and something we need to think about.

So, most of us know what a slam dunk is. Obviously, if you live in Kentucky, you follow basketball, you know about a slam dunk. You know that that’s when whoever has the ball is going up, and there’s no way to stop them, and they’re going to put it through the hoop, and that’s going to be that.

Last Friday I recorded a video saying that I thought, as much as it pained me, that I thought it was time for Joe Biden to step aside and let Kamala Harris become the candidate.

Well, that happened on Sunday, and since then, the past two or three days have just been crazy. She has raised an immense amount of money. The Biden-Harris campaign was running about 250 volunteer sign-ups a day, and after that announcement in the next, I think, 24 or 30 hours, they had 27,000 people sign up to volunteer. They have all these new donors. They have all, you know, there’s all this excitement. There’s all this, yes, it’s going to happen.

Here’s the problem, folks: this isn’t a slam dunk.

Donald Trump was ahead of Joe Biden in a number of swing states. Donald Trump, according to some polls, is still ahead of Kamala Harris in some swing states.

Do I think that’ll change? Yes. Do I think it’s possible that we could have a blue wave? Yes. I think that’s possible. I also think it’s possible that it could be very close, and I also think it’s possible that she could lose, and Donald Trump could become president for life, which is what he wants.

It’s not a slam dunk. So what does that mean?

That means that all of us have to do what we were going to do. We have to donate. We have to volunteer. We have to talk to our friends. We have to talk to anybody we can. We have to donate. (I said that again.) We have to talk to other people. We have to go door knocking. We have to put up yard signs. We have to do all the stuff you do because you’re serious about winning an election.

And by the way, just because it’s Kentucky, doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. The same level of excitement and energy needs to be present in this state as anywhere else.

And why? Because if we get people to come to the polls to vote for Kamala Harris, they’re probably going to vote for some of our down-ballot candidates as well. In fact, I suspect that there are three or four House races, maybe a Senate race or two, that are going to flip because of the energy in this campaign.

So it’s not a slam dunk. You can’t sit on your butt. You can’t take it for granted. You’ve got to do everything you can. It’s like the old saying in sports, play like you’re behind because we may be behind.

So that’s my word for today. It’s not a slam dunk. The game is still on. We still have three more quarters to go. And in 105 days, it’s all going to be over. So we’ve got to leave it all on the court and take every advantage we can during the next 105 days to get as many people to the polls to vote for Kamala Harris and any other Democrat we can convince them to vote for.

We’ve got 105 days, people. It’s not a slam dunk. Let’s get to work.

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