Dem Challenger to McConnell Gets Boost from Katzenberg, Hollywood

Dem Challenger to McConnell Gets Boost from Katzenberg, Hollywood

Kentucky Democrat Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes is getting a boost from the Hollywood elite. Grimes has refused to make clear her positions on many issues of the day, emulating Barack Obama in 2008. 

Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO of Dreamworks Animation, has a net worth of $957 million and gave more than $3.5 million to Democratic campaigns and spending groups in the last election cycle. These gifts included $3 million to pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA. Katzenberg has given every cent he can to Grimes already and is urging other Hollywood liberals to support Grimes at Los Angeles events on Sept. 26.

Katzenberg wrote in an e-mail that the Grimes race against Mitch McConnell was “a pivotal election that can get the Senate working again.”

There is no more important election being held next year in this country. As the Senate’s Minority Leader since 2007, McConnell has used the filibuster 420 times to block legislation and appointments that were supported by a clear majority of Senators … We are talking about outright obstruction of the democratic process. Alison is the antidote to McConnell and all he represents. She can win, and she will win if she gets the support she needs… (You) may not yet know the name Alison Lundergan Grimes. But I’m certain you know the name Mitch McConnell.

McConnell spokeswoman Allison Moore said it’s “no surprise that Obama’s liberal Hollywood friends are supporting Alison Lundergan Grimes’s campaign against Mitch McConnell. They’re obviously not concerned about Kentucky’s representation, but they know that a Grimes victory would mean eliminating the last obstacle to enacting the full Obama agenda, implementing Obamacare, and officially taking out Kentucky’s coal industry.”

Katzenberg is a committed liberal; he said in April 2012: “I was concerned about the attempted hijacking of the elections by Karl Rove, the Koch brothers, and other extreme right wing special interest money and felt strongly that a defense had to be mounted.”

Meanwhile, Grimes has been evading the issues quite nicely. She was MIA for 12 days in July instead of meeting with any Kentucky residents; when she finally turned up, it was for a private fundraiser in Martha’s Vineyard with Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, and other Democrats.

At the recent Kentucky State Fair Grimes was interviewed and asked how her support for Obamacare would affect senior citizens. She responded:

We’re here at the State Fair and if there are three reasons why Kentuckians, especially our seniors need access to affordable health care coverage, you just have to look over to the right where you see the donut burger, the chili cheese-steak and the covered French fries that are here.

Even according to Politico, Grimes has tried to evade taking a position on the issues. Politico wrote on August 2 of this year: 

She has yet to detail many of her positions, underscoring the tightrope she’ll have to walk between energizing the left and running in a red state in which Democrats bidding for federal office typically flounder.

She would not say what her position is on banning assault weapons. Similarly, Grimes declined to lay out her views on hot-button social issues like abortion and gay marriage, nor was she eager to talk about whether she backs higher taxes on high-income earners. While she says she wouldn’t repeal Obamacare, as McConnell has demanded, Grimes has separately made comments that she wants to “fix” the law. But she has been cagey on what exactly she would change.

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