McGrath: Mitch 'is dead set on taking health coverage from Americans'

By BERRY CRAIG

AFT Local 1360

I asked Bill Straub if he'd spied any chinks in Mitch McConnell's suit of armor as Kentucky's longest-tenured senator saddles up to tilt with Amy McGrath.

"Social Security and health care," the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Famer replied. "A lot of Kentuckians depend on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid."

For eons, McConnell, who's going for a seventh term, has been trying to gut all three. The millionaire Louisville Republican believes Uncle Sam's proper role is enriching the already rich, not helping those who need help. He's all in for shredding the rest of Uncle Sam's social safety net--and for union-busting, to boot.

I doubt McGrath, a Scott countian, Naval Academy grad and former Marine combat jet pilot, has been gabbing with Bill, who retired to a DC burb after a long career reporting the news in Kentucky and in our national capital.

But in a new press release from Team McGrath, the Democrat who wants McConnell's job says her campaign "is about the future of our health care--plain and simple." The release jabs, "If we re-elect Mitch, we're sending someone back to the Senate who is dead set on taking health coverage from Americans."

From Jordan to Jenkins, most of McConnell's constituents live a long way from Easy Street. A slew of us indeed depend on Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.

But you've got to hand it to the guy who's been in the Senate since 1985. McConnell is an old-time social Darwinist who believes that only rich people count and that if you're poor, it's your own fault.

Even so, he's been wildly successful conning voters by non-stop pandering on the social issues. "Abortion and guns," said Straub, who writes a liberal-leaning political column for KyForward.com and NKYTribune.com.

"When he was elected Jefferson County judge [in 1977], he was pro-choice," recalled Straub, who joined The Kentucky Post in 1979 after stints at papers in Corbin, Paris and Georgetown. "McConnell saw which way the winds were blowing. He knew that [pro-choice] position wouldn't do him any good in a statewide race."

No wonder Alec MacGillis titled his 2014 book The Cynic: The Political Education of Mitch McConnell.

City slicker McConnell evidently isn't much on hunting, but he also tapped into Kentucky's "gun culture," said Straub, who became the Washington correspondent for the Kentucky and Cincinnati Posts in 1994 and wound up as the White House and political correspondent for Scripps-Howard News Service. 

Elsewhere in the release, McGrath says "The New York Times just reported that over 5 million American workers have lost their health insurance this spring. That’s 5 million more people forced to walk a medical and financial tightrope while we face the worst public health crisis in living memory—two terrifying realities happening at once."

The crisis should be a call to action for America's leaders, she adds. "But Mitch McConnell has tried over and over again to rip health care away from millions of Americans, even before the pandemic. And he has no plans to help the millions of our neighbors, relatives, and colleagues who are now on the precipice of medical and financial catastrophe."

In the release, McGrath, who lives in Georgetown, says she's "running for Senate because I believe every American deserves to get affordable health coverage, regardless of whether they’re employed. And what we’re seeing now, with over 1 million Kentuckians applying for unemployment, is exactly why we need to make that vision a reality as soon as possible."

The release wraps up with a link for donations to help "end Mitch’s political career for good."