The Populist Guest Star

Nearly 500 people are packed into a squat redbrick building on the University of Louisville campus; a few dozen more press their faces against the windows of the former water-tank factory trying to get a look inside. Louisville is Kentucky’s most progressive city; every other person in this crowd seems to be a social worker. It’s a warm Sunday morning and all these �godless liberals,� as one man jokes, have come to see a visiting liberal goddess, Senator Elizabeth Warren, at a campaign rally for Grimes.

�[Mitch McConnell] bets he can go to Washington and he can vote to make all the rules tilt in favor of the rich and the powerful,� Warren yells, so pumped up she’s doing a kind of push-up against the podium. �That he can go to Washington and he can do what the lobbyists want him to do and that you won’t hold him accountable � Mitch McConnell bet against you. Alison and I, we’re betting on you!�

Warren is here for two days primarily because she’s a fantastic fund-raising draw. But she also delivers unparalleled populist energy�though bringing a Harvard professor turned liberal icon to the state is a complicated, risky play. McConnell’s ads paint Grimes as a tool of the Obama-Warren elite interest groups that want to kill Kentucky jobs. And Warren is central to the ongoing debate about what the Democrats should be: the party of income-inequality crusaders? Or the party of liberal cultural values and Wall Street realism? But the Grimes campaign decided Warren’s clarity of belief was worth any downside. �The 2014 Senate races are all about whether Washington is going to work for families or whether Washington will be owned by those with money and power who can hire the lobbyists,� Warren tells me later. �We can talk about economics, we can talk about power and privilege, but ultimately it’s about our values. That’s what I like about Alison.�

Grimes, though, isn’t going full populist. When I ask if the one percent should pay higher taxes, she sidesteps: �I think that they want to make sure they’re paying their fair share.� Plenty of Kentucky voters are waiting to see if Grimes can find the sweet spot between Hillary-style caution and Warrenesque boldness.

The Voters

�One’s corrupt and the other’s liberal,� spits Melinda Fleckinger. �Not much of a choice.� She’s sitting under a small tent, staring down a small hill at a greenish pond. Around Fleckinger, for ten acres in every direction, are campers, RVs, and pickups�thousands upon thousands of tailgaters, camped for days around the 100,000-seat Kentucky Speedway, perched in the distance on the highest hill of what used to be farmland in Sparta, Kentucky. The smoke from hundreds of charcoal grills drifts and swirls.

The tailgaters aren’t reflexive government-haters, and they are by no means a scientific focus group. Yet the mood here echoes across the country: not so much for or against either candidate as deeply disgusted with politics in general. Fleckinger, 48, works for a packaging company and has seen small businesses struggle for years. �At least Rand Paul puts a bug up their asses in Washington,� she says. But even the tea party holds little appeal to most people here, coming across as just one more sideshow with little impact on regular lives.

�They all want to blame the other one,� says Mike Warren, a beefy guy with a white handlebar mustache. �I’d vote for the guy who says, �I screwed up. It’s my fault.’ � The laughs from his friend are so loud I almost don’t hear it when Warren adds quietly, �I’m a union electrician. Out of work six months. Long time at home.�

�We get all this mail, �Obama wants to do away with coal,’ � Brittney Embry says. �If that happens, my husband’s done. He drives coal trains.�

�Nah, that’s not gonna happen,� Warren says, but Embry doesn’t look reassured.

Down at the end of a muddy aisle is a younger crew, three guys and three women, all in their 20s, all cheerfully fatalistic. �Bria’s got a master’s degree, but she can’t get a teaching job,� says Ryan Harris, 28, who is wearing big black wraparound shades and an American-flag bandanna and gesturing to a friend. Harris is a University of Louisville graduate. �I’m working retail,� he says sheepishly, �and I don’t know what’s next. People seem sick of �McConnell, but I don’t think Grimes would make much of a difference.�

Everybody sits silent for a minute, passing around a bottle of bourbon. Well, who are they rooting for in the NASCAR race tonight?

�Nobody in particular,� Jimmy House says. �A wreck.�

Related:

• Archive: “Features”
• Articles by Chris Smith
• Table of Contents: Aug 25, 2014 issue of New York | Subscribe!