Watching Ashley Judd at a women’s reproductive health conference at George Washington University, I am very impressed with her as a person and a spokesperson for very important global issues. She really has a depth of knowledge about a wide variety of subjects. She’s also very personable, intelligent, articulate, funny, and basically likable. At the same time, I think she has a lot of work to do to be a successful politician.
Her biggest problem is that she talks about herself too much, although that is partly a byproduct of the forum. She’s talking about herself to inspire students and convince them that they can have exciting and fulfilling lives serving the disadvantaged or working for worthy causes. Still, as a Senate candidate from Kentucky, she will need to tone down the name-dropping, the humble-bragging, and the emphasis on issues that will probably seem pretty remote to the average Kentuckian.
I’m a firm believer that the first duty of a politician is to serve their constituents. Their interests come first. I don’t say this as an abstraction or some kind of ideal. I’m talking about a prerequisite for success in politics. I met Alan Grayson at a reception in Austin, Texas in July 2008. I tried to talk to him about his district and the issues that were particularly important to his would-be constituents. But he only wanted to convince me that he thought the Bush administration was filled with criminals and that he had a record of fighting criminals. I met a lot of other politicians that night. All of them impressed me more than Alan Grayson.
It wasn’t that I disagreed with what he was saying to me. I had probably written three posts that day saying essentially the same thing. The problem was that I could tell that he wasn’t getting into politics to serve his constituents, but to have a platform to wage his own personal battle. In his first term in Congress, he fulfilled all my expectations. He made some great stands. He pulled some wonderful stunts. But he didn’t pay attention to his district, and he was crushed by an astonishing 18 points. I’ll be honest. He totally deserved to lose.
So, when I look at Ashley Judd, it’s obvious that she has a pre-existing set of issues that she’s totally dedicated to and that have relevance to all human beings, but they aren’t issues that are specific to Kentucky. If she is going to run a successful campaign, she needs to filter everything she’s been working on into language that speaks specifically to the people of Kentucky.
She’s very liberal and not a natural match for the Bluegrass State electorate. But I think she can overcome that. She can really be a game changer because of her skills, ability, glamor, and personality. But she has habits that she needs to break. If she starts a sentence with ‘I,’ the next word should be ‘think,’ and not ‘went,’ ‘met,’ or ‘did.’ All Hollywood-speak needs to be drummed out of her. Stop mentioning Bono.
To win, she will need to go into the small towns of Kentucky and immerse herself in the culture and figure out how to talk directly to those people’s concerns. Mitch McConnell is the least popular senator in the country. The people of Kentucky want an alternative. Ashley Judd isn’t ready to beat him yet, but she has promise.
Where did you watch? Were you there? My girlfriend was there, and apparently got up to speak/ask a question (more speak…)
What did your gf ask?
Eh…not sure I want to disclose. I don’t even know what she said, exactly, just that she poured her guts out and told her own story…she called me bawling.
It was on CSPAN tonight.
Yeah, the Grayson comparison is apt. The show he put on made him the darling of the progressive internet, but it didn’t do much to win him votes back home. Likewise, as she is, Judd would light up the intertoobz and provide us all with a hell of an entertaining circus for most of 2014, but for the moment she’s still a better activist than she is a politician.
I mean, I want her to run whether she has a chance of beating McConnell or not, because of the guaranteed hilarity of it all. But it’d be a hell of a lot funnier if she went and beat McConnell to top it off.
If she gets in .. I bet she’ll beat The Turtle. I’m not going to bet any money on it. I have a good habit of being right when I don’t bet money on the outcome. I wish Booman would tell me one thing. How, exactly, does The Turtle have the interests of the residents of Kentucky at heart?
A Congress full of Graysons would probably be a substantial upgrade in many respects, however.
Absolutely!!!
AG
Alan Grayson got elected to his re-gerrymandered old district last year. Did you miss that? Seems he does constituent services just fine.
Since he got reelected to a district that was gerrymandered after he left, that doesn’t actually tell us very much about his record on constituent services.
It was essentially the same geography.
She probably has a decent shot at it. After all, Al Franken was once Stewart Smalley.
Still, as a Senate candidate from Kentucky, she will need to tone down the name-dropping, the humble-bragging, and the emphasis on issues that will probably seem pretty remote to the average Kentuckian.
How do you know she won’t? Has she announced she’s running yet? Despite being a DFH, polls had her very close to The Turtle. I didn’t see if the polls measured name recognition. If those numbers are high, it obviously means that KY residents are taken with her celebrity. Anyway, she right with a lot of KY on one issue. Wildcat basketball!! Don’t underestimate that. My biggest fear isn’t the name-dropping and the rest of what you mentioned. I’m more worried about how she’ll respond to all the shit shoveled her way from The Turtle and all his lackeys(like Turdblossom). Because we all know that they’ll get in the gutter and stay there.
Don’t call him the turtle! I like turtles!
Bite the sumbitch, you old snapper!
I didn’t say she wouldn’t. I offered this in the hope that she would.
I started a comment. It grew. Now a stand-alone post.
Booman Doesn’t Much Like Ashley Judd. Politically.
Some excerpts:
I get his point about Grayson…he’s not interested in local issues specific to his constituents, and didn’t know much about how Congress operated/where he wanted to serve.
I get it, but I find it laughable to a degree. “Serving their constituents” typically means serving Big Power that are reserved in the region. Rockefeller served his constituents’ “interests” by being a shill for Coal (has it occurred to people that their interests in a threatened climate surpasses that of their short-term jobs, jobs that are toxic to society as a whole?).
Anyway, I cosign this comment, AG.
You know for a fact that Grayson’s not interested in local issues specific to his constituents?
Thank you.
AG
Booman isn’t saying he doesn’t support the positions of Grayson or Judd. He’s talking about what it takes to build bases of power.
It’s not enough to be pure. One has to make a lasting difference. Obamacare is the perfect example. As a piece of legislation, it’s incredibly compromised. This is frustrating and galling and sad and unjust. At the same time, it’s a total game changer. This is why Republicans go apeshit over it. They desperately want to repeal it because they know this country will never be the same once healthcare is seen as a right. In time, it will lead to more reform.
Holding out for single payer, or even a public option, would have lead to a sense of ideological superiority and nothing more. Sort of like voting for Ralph Nader. Worse than a wasted vote, the underlying cynicism is destructive.
Like it or not, Obama will be remembered as a great president for what he accomplished. Fifty years from now, we’ll look back on health care reform as his crowning achievement.
Grayson has no achievement on which to look back. Booman said it well; if Judd can learn to connect with the needs of her constituents, she can be a game changer. If she runs and loses, she will have wasted an opportunity and done her part to reelect a cynical politician far uglier in his heart than any turtle.
You dumbass. I was unimpressed with Grayson as a politician because I could tell he wanted to be a showboat. It’s been Ashley Judd’s role for a long time to lend her celebrity to worthy causes, and that involves a bit of showboating by definition. Grayson needed to learn to make it all about someone other than himself. Judd just needs to recalibrate and make sure that she effectively communicates that Kentucky comes before her preexisting political interests and causes. She’s been making it about the needy and sick and women’s rights for a long time already.
As to Obama, after six weeks you’d call for any American president to be sent to the Hague. That’s how you define the president’s role.
What? Obama isn’t a “showboat?”
Coulda fooled me.
He’s just a much better showboat than was Grayson.
Greater talent.
In point of fact, the more I see Obama the more I think that he is verging on being a seriously ill narcissist.
Hubris.
It’s what’s for dinner.
Watch.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Watch.
He’s headed for a fall.
Watch.
AG
For example, the “Obama is a narcissist” line is all over the internet from every right wing/neo-nazi/sleazeball wingnut operative
But of course, when Left Wing Savants come to the same conclusion and parrot the same drearily stupid points, it’s not due to them being dupes of the Right Wing Controlled Media, it’s because of their FEARLESS readiness to defy Obotic Stalinism. Right?
Since I consume absolutely no “right-wing” media, I guess I’m just another fool who reads what people are doing and ascribes characteristics to them baed on what he sees.
You know…like knowing who’s a threat on the street and who’s not? 45+ years on the hard streets on NYC have taught me to look at people, rootless2. My life has depended on it. I’ve gotten very good at it, too.
The rightinesses think that he’s a narcissist?
I have a stopped clock on my mantle. It’s right a couple of times a day.
So what?
I don’t accuse someone of looking at the clock if they say it’s the same time as the clock does. Not if they have a good watch I don’t.
And I have a great watch.
Watch.
AG
Oh of course. Unlike the rest of America, which is immersed in media and shared social/cultural currents, Left Wing Savants are independent thinkers who are uninfluenced by anything aside from their objective analysis and incisive thinking. That’s why Left Wing Savants are never racist – they are immune from the endemic prejudices of society by virtue of their own enlightened thinking. And this is testified to by the most enlightened and objective thinkers in America – themselves. Similarly, Left Wing Savants who continually produce tired insulting gibberish about the Democratic President that looks nearly identical to material that is widely disseminated by right wing media and cultural operations, are not, despite what it may look like, parroting wing nut points that fit their own delusional self-image, but are actually victims of a stunning coincidence.
Arthur finds Barack Obama very, very uppity.
Arthur can go bleep himself. He is what he is – the guy who defended George Zimmerman and called Trayvon Martin a racist.
Wow. Worse than I had imagined: another Left Wing Savant for the Klan.
who eventually even got banned from DailyKos for his racist drivel?
He’s not a leftie; he’s a libertarian.
Bullshit. I only asked for a fair trial for Zimmerman. Nothing more and nothing less.
AG
Further, the very use of the word “uppity” when applied to any racial discourse in the U.S. is poisonous. I would like Obama’s actions no more and no less were he any other race, religion or sex. He signed the National Defense Authorization Act. I do not much care why he says he signed it; the fact of the matter is that he did. After that? I no longer trust him. If he did this w/the idea that it would not be used sometime in the future then his naivete is totally unacceptable, and if he is simply jiving us all with his pronouncements about “freedom” while covertly setting up a potential militarily-ruled state then he is one very dangerous individual.
Race?
I am a lifelong jazz and latin musician, fool. At the highest levels of the NYC scene. My models have been of all races and I do not give a flying fuck about the color of Obama’s skin or anybody else’s. To say…or imply…that I am a racist is an insult that I will not let pass. Bet on it. Not here and not anywhere else in the world either.
You go to hell, sir.
AG
That is the pure stupid shit. It’s the classic progressive argument: everyone must line up for defeat, yell out the approved slogan, and enjoy the group bitter as the voters fail to appreciate our brilliance – AGAIN!
And anyone who has the temerity to disrespect a “left” that consistently aids the right in taking and keeping power is an evil rightwinger. Of, fucking course
Or we could be like you. Banishing people from your site for asking legitimate questions that have evidence behind them because we aren’t cheering every act the President makes, no matter what it is.
You guys are so brave for dissenting from the Mau-Mau Sharia Law Obot Stalinism. And you have such independent minds, all writing the same paraphrases of Luntz spin points that come from FDL, all at the same time- independently!
In what tiny world are you living, rootless2? Some obscure corner of the leftiness world where people are incapable of coming to their own conclusions and can only parrot equally obscure pundits?
Who the fuck is “Luntz” and gives a shit what goes on at Firedoglake?
Shakespeare knew.
AG
I can just evaluate what people write. The similarity of “progressive” lines to Luntz spin points might be pure accident. I don’t make a judgment.
Oh no?
That sounds like a judgment to me.
In fact, it sounds just like more of the dKos shit, writ small. I’ll bet your little blog reeks to high heaven of lockstep DemRat stupidity.
Clomp clomp clomp clomp clomp clomp clomp, the leftiness zombie hordes approach!!!
Luckily, you are all too stupid to be anything more than a slight diversion.
Go away, child.
Y’bother me.
AG
“Demrat” – another classic right wing term. A crowd pleasing sure-to-win one at both CPAC and Whiny-Fake-Left blog sites.
Oh,just a coincidence. You FearLess Dissidents from Obot Stalinism keep using terms, spin points, catch phrases that are popular from CPAC to Nazi sites – but just by coincidence
Yup.
I give up.
We’re all agents of the far right.
And you are paranoid.
Go away.
Please.
AG
Instead of supporting people who insist on promoting a moral vision it disses them if they do not show serious signs of mainstream political compromising tendencies
So addressing issues of local concern is “mainstream political compromising tendencies?”
What could possibly be more in “consituents’ interests” than a non-criminally infiltrated federal government?
How long a list would you like? Bridge repairs, potholes, health coverage, police services, hospital funding, Title 1, civil rights enforcement, combined sewer overflows, street trees, yellow lines down the middle of the road, drinking water treatment…
Arthur Gilroy is what happens when you forget that the government actually has a day job, and isn’t just an arena for your ideological ambitions.
Her one cause is global liberal feminism.
Kentucky’s chief products are coal and bourbon whiskey.
Not a natural match, no.
Dhhhh…what’s the ratio of men to women in Kentucky again? Just about the same as the rest of the world, right? And…so far, at least…Kentucky hasn’t passed a law saying that wives have to vote the same as do their husbands or girlfriends the same as their boyfriends. Nor have they passed a law saying that females waive the right to a secret ballot.
Duh.
Judd already has a majority if she campaigns well.
Duh.
AG
Duh, what a clownshow. All women will vote for a woman candidate because – well because Progressive Genius Thinks They Should. 39% of women voted GOP in the battleground states in the last presidential election.
Duh.
Y’mean…61% of them voted DemRat?
That’s a good start on a majority, right there. And Obama’s just a good-looking male. Judd vs. McConnell?
Landslide!!!
The women will tend to vote for Judd…61% would be jes’ fine as far as I’m concerned…and so would many men who have lusted over her in her movies. So would the celebrity nerds…about 60% of the population if what I see in the media roundups is correct. Also the Kentucky Wildcat fans…she’s big on basketball…and the country music fans who love her mama and sister. In Kentucky? That’s just about everybody, right there.
Judd vs. McConnell?
Landslide!!!
Hell, rootless…looks like McConnell better start looking at retirement homes to me.
Go back to that lame website you reference in your posts.
Please.
You’re outta your class here.
AG
That’s for damn sure: I am out of my class here. For example, my class does not involve mixing right wing insult terms for Democrats with innumeracy, condescending sexist assertions about women voters, and ignorant self-congratulation. That’s you. And keep it
Dealing with constituents is tricky these days because there is a definite difference between serving constituents’ interests and serving constituents’ opinions. And when constituents vote, the fight is between those two things. And these days in states like Kentucky, constituent interests come up short.
It is easy to stereotype Kentucky, but like most states there are definite regional differences in the state. Those make for the conflicts in state politics.
What analysts think Ashley Judd brings to a campaign – notice that she has not announced a candidacy – is widespread positive name recognition, something state legislators who might run would have to build.
The tie with constituents can be built by starting with a listening tour before any announcement. Listen to folks spout what they’ve heard—and then ask, OK, now that we’ve gotten out the standard opinions, what are your real concerns about the government. That becomes part of the platform for running. The hard part is going to be getting beyond the Rush-FoxNews talking point to what’s really bothering people.
That listening tour also gives a state-of-the regions view. Where the real hot-button issues that no one is willing to talk about are in each region.
So you listen with your retail politics and you feed back those concerns and how you will work on them in your media strategy. Along with upping Sen. Turtle’s negatives.
The question is whether Ashley Judd can put together the team to do that. And whether there’s enough Bluegrass State left in her that she can carry off that front-porch kind of listening in rural areas. And enough class to get through to folks in the urban suburbs.
if I was part of DSCC, I would sit down and ask her bluntly if she’s willing to do the grunt work. a lot has been said about President Obama as a candidate, but some things have been overlooked – like his willingness to do the grunt work. he went from small town to small town in Illinois, getting his name out when he was running for Senator.
if Ms. Judd is willing to go from Kentucky hellhole to Kentucky hellhole, then I think the DSCC should be all in for her candidacy.
bring in someone to train her on explaining how the
Obama will help their poor White asses.
Can I suggest, Booman, that you offer your services as a political consultant to Ashley? Sure she needs some Kentucky based operatives – people who understand the local lingo and issues – but she also need someone to help her organise and translate her global concerns into local proposals that at least some key swing voters can get behind. She has to retain some glamour and mystique as a movie star, buy she also needs to sprinkle that stardust generously around those she hopes to inspire – make them feel that they are part of her campaign and own a part of it.
In some ways she has to come to appear almost apolitical, as someone who understands where mostly apolitical Kentuckians are coming from. If she comes across as a Hollywood know it all do-gooder, she has lost. But she doesn’t have to pretend she is one of them – Reagan never did – she just has to show she can understand their fears and concerns without being judgemental of them.
She’s a great actress, but she needs someone to define her role for her, a Director and Producer. The policy wonks are important too, but in a more background role. You have to master politics as a process before you get the licence to do substance.
Hey, I’d love to spend the next year in Kentucky, away from my boy, trying to help Ashley Judd navigate an electorate that I understand very poorly, but I think she can spend her money more wisely some other way.