By Liz Carey
Kentucky Lantern
The message from the Kentucky GOP in the upcoming election cycle will focus around three tenets – faith, family and freedom.
That’s the message nearly 1,000 GOP faithful heard at the Republican Party of Kentucky’s Statewide Lincoln Dinner Saturday night at the Central Bank Center. Party leaders, office holders, donors and members gathered to listen to key candidates and party leaders about what the party has accomplished in the past year, and how to continue their momentum into the midterms.
As the party’s attention turns from the primaries to the general election in November, it pushed a message of unity – that the party must now come together in order to defeat Democrats.
At the center of the evening was a rallying speech by U.S. Rep. Andy Barr who is running to fill U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s seat. After thanking McConnell for his decades of representation in Congress and leadership, Barr said the primaries had only strengthened him.
“Because of the competition of that primary I am today a better candidate and now as was noted, we have to come together, unite as a party, and join with like-minded independents and common-sense Democrats to finish the job. The stakes are too high. The need is great, and the time to save America is now,” he said.
Barr directly targeted his opponent, Democrat Charles Booker, and the Democratic party at large, by portraying the race as one of “common sense vs. crazy.”
“Today in America, freedom is under attack. A growing powerful left-wing woke socialist and crazy ideology is on the march. If we let it, it will come to Kentucky. And my fellow Republicans, I will not let it,” Barr said. “This campaign is about Kentucky common sense versus crazy. It’s that simple.”
Barr focused on several Republican tenets – economic growth, limited government, personal responsibility, law and order, and boys out of girls’ sports.
“Common sense tells us that we are a nation of immigrants, and that we welcome people to our country, but they have to come legally, or they should not be here at all. Common sense tells us that you have to show a voter ID in order to vote, and common sense tells us that our national defense must be the strongest in the world… And common sense tells us that boys are boys and girls are girls, and biological men should not be allowed to compete against girls in sports,” he said.
Calling Booker “the Mamdani of Kentucky,” he said Booker’s top priority, if elected, would be to impeach President Donald Trump.
Other speakers alluded to the fight this fall as one for the soul of the country and the state. Speakers included U.S. House of Representatives Dr. Ralph Alvarado who is vying to represent the 6th Congressional District, U.S. Rep. Andy Barr’s seat; 4th District Congressional candidate Ed Gallrein, who is running to fill U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie’s seat; and Maria Rodriguez, candidate for Kentucky’s 3rd Congressional District, a seat the party hopes to flip from Democrat Morgan McGarvey.
“One path, the path for the far left, tells us to lower our expectations, accept decline, and trust that government can solve every problem,” Alvarado said. “The other path is the American path, the path of freedom, the path of responsibility, the path of faith, the path of self-government, the path that says free people are capable of far more than any bureaucracy could ever imagine.”
The U.S. House and Senate are Republican-held by thin margins. As Trump’s poll numbers hover below 40 percent, nationally Republicans worry about the impact of Trump’s policies and the Iran War on the party’s chances of retaining control of Congress. Gallrein, the Trump-endorsed candidate who ousted Trump critic U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, said the only way to ensure continued control was to work as a united front against their Democratic neighbors.
“Our history will punish us if we do not take advantage of this narrow window of opportunity,” Gallrein said. “It’s more than fitting that at this dinner, that is named after Abraham Lincoln, who say famously said, ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ That isn’t just a political cliche, isn’t it? It’s a stark reminder to us all. We accomplish far more together when we’re than when we’re apart.”