But groups like VoteVets, a nonprofit that promotes veteran

An Outsider Kentucky Dem Found The Inside Track

Last June, the former Marine fighter pilot retired from the military to move home to Kentucky and launch a political career. McGrath is everything a national Democratic campaign official would want in a new candidate she is a woman and a veteran, and while she isn’t a small business owner, her husband is. Still, canada goose store she struggled to win over Democratic Party insiders in Kentucky and Washington, most of whom were waiting for Jim Gray, the popular mayor of Lexington, to decide whether he would pursue Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District seat instead.

canada goose clearance So in July, with a bit of money in the bank and desperation beginning to set in, McGrath’s campaign manager, Mark Nickolas, decided that he had to do something crazy. He told McGrath, who hadn’t yet unpacked from her move, to dig her bomber jacket out of a box. He canada goose coats took his fledgling candidate to Lexington’s Blue Grass Airport, stood her in front of a fighter jet, and told Mark Putnam, the ad man who has made Democratic candidates from buy canada goose jacket cheap Missouri to Wisconsin go viral, to start filming. canada goose clearance

canada goose coats The ad that resulted told a simple story: As a child, McGrath begged her congressman to help overturn the military’s ban on women in combat, to no avail. But the Pentagon reversed course when she was in high school. Naval Academy, joined the Marines and Canada Goose Parka became the first woman to ever fly an F 18 fighter jet in combat. canada goose coats

canada goose McGrath relates this anecdote over b roll of soaring jets, with a quick departure to point out that Republicans want to take away Kentuckians’ health care. You could discern the message of the commercial all the way from Paducah: McGrath is a woman and a fighter, and she won’t be deterred from achieving her goals. canada goose

When Nickolas answered his cell phone on the morning of Aug. 1, 2017, the day he planned to launch the ad, the voice on the other end had bad news: McGrath had raised just $50,000 so far. The ad had cost $57,000. Her campaign was $7,000 in the red, and she’d barely said hello.

buy canada goose jacket “I thought to myself, ‘Did I just destroy her career?'” Nickolas said. buy canada goose jacket

canadian goose jacket On the contrary: Over the next three days, McGrath became a national political sensation, a symbol of the wave of Democratic women running for office in the age cheap Canada Goose of Trump. Comedian Sarah Silverman called her a “badass” on Twitter. Chelsea Handler invited McGrath to appear on her show. More than 1 million people watched the video, and money lots of money began rolling in: McGrath raised more than $340,000 in the 72 hours after the commercial first aired. canadian goose jacket

What the ad didn’t do, however, was win over national Democrats Canada Goose Outlet namely, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC, which continued to recruit Gray. Neither did it push Gray out of the race: When he finally declared his candidacy in December, Gray held, according to McGrath’s own internal polling, a 40 point lead.

But handshake by handshake, McGrath quickly narrowed the gap. Going into Tuesday’s primary, she was either fast on canada goose deals Gray’s heels or out in front, depending on whose polling you believe, and the DCCC has quietly taken the position that either Democratic hopeful will have a strong chance to beat Republican incumbent Rep. Andy Barr in November.

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cheap canada goose uk Ideologically speaking, there is little daylight between McGrath and Gray. The distinction between them lies mainly in affect and strategy, with McGrath continuing to push an outsider vs. insider narrative of the primary even as she seemed to become at least some of the insiders’ preferred candidate. Stick that on your lawn sign. Senate” campaign sticker plastered on the front door. cheap canada goose uk

canada goose uk black friday And though McGrath’s initial ad had buy canada goose jacket garnered her national attention, Gray still seemed like an obvious front runner in the early months of the canada goose race: Heis the mayor of the district’s biggest base of reliably Democratic votes and oversees a city with a 3 percent unemployment rate. He won the 19 county area by three points in the Senate race against Paul. And in a year when the DCCC is going for broke trying to gain the 24 seats it needs to regain the House majority, Gray is a bit of www.newmediadoc.com a luxury: a wealthy businessman in a marginally competitive district who has the ability to Canada Goose sale relieve financial pressure on the national party by self canada goose coats on sale financing at least part of his campaign. canada goose uk black friday

canada goose store Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, Amy McGrath’s primary opponent, has promised to some adult supervision to Washington. He supports raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and expanding Obamacare; he touts a record of targeting utility monopolies that would seem to fit neatly into the new Democratic antitrust agenda. A win in the primary and again in November would make him the first openly gay congressman in Kentucky’s history. canada goose store

But what would ordinarily be a compelling biography instead became something of a liability in an election year that has thus far favored political outsiders especially when they’re women. In Virginia, Pennsylvania, Nebraska and beyond, insurgent female candidates have knocked off more established opponents with stronger on paper political resumes, feeding off the sense that Americans (and especially Democrats) want a canada goose black friday sale new generation of political leaders to emerge.

So what Canada Goose Jackets Gray and national Democrats saw as strengths, McGrath and her team instantly pegged as weaknesses. Without much room to differentiate herself on the issues, McGrath instead chose to paint Gray as a favorite son of the national Democratic establishment, the hand picked choice of Washington rather than of central Kentucky.

cheap Canada Goose “I think people are hungry for new leaders, and a new generation of leaders,” she said. “They’re tired of the old guard. They want folks who aren’t hand picked.” cheap Canada Goose

The characterization isn’t exactly accurate: Aside from the Senate run, Gray’s entire political career has been spent on the Lexington city council or in the mayor’s office, and he’s hardly been a prominent voice in statewide or national Democratic politics. But by playing up her status as an outsider a veteran, a mother, a woman, three things she says there aren’t enough of in Congress McGrath’s narrative has taken hold nonetheless, and her calls to shake up Congress have resonated strongly against Gray’s safer, duller call to “send some adult supervision to Washington.”

Yet as McGrath’s national profile grew after her first ad, she remained relatively unknown and perhaps even a little suspect to Kentucky voters. Naval Academy.

(Gray attempted to punch back on this point in the race’s closing days, releasing an ad that hit McGrath for only recently moving to Kentucky. But groups like VoteVets, a nonprofit that promotes veteran candidates and their issues, have slammed the ad as an attempt to “swift boat” McGrath’s campaign.)

canada goose uk outlet Even before Gray entered the race, Nickolas, who had managed former Rep. Ben Chandler’s (D) successful 6th District campaign in 2004, outlined an aggressive retail politicking strategy to get McGrath in front of voters not just on TV, but in their homes, churches, billboards and mailboxes. canada goose uk outlet

canada goose factory sale Nickolas who thought he was out of politics for good until Chandler urged him to meet with McGrath said he was instantly swayed by her grasp of the issues and the realities of politics, which she had honed during stints working for Rep. Susan Davis (D Calif.) in Congress during her time in the military. Most of all, he was impressed by her passion, and he banked on his belief canada goose outlet that if they had to chance to meet her, Kentucky voters would feel the same. canada goose factory sale

uk canada goose outlet McGrath, meanwhile, purchased ad space in every local newspaper in the district and published an editorial detailing why she had chosen to run now, in 2018, and here, in central Kentucky. She piggybacked off the popularity of the initial ad, which gained her thousands of social media followers, to hold Q with voters in the Canada Goose online district that were broadcast on Facebook. She hit all 19 counties in her first few months in the race, stumping across the region and spending hours, even days, in areas that had once been reliable Democratic strongholds but have trended red for more than a decade. uk canada goose outlet

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