Mary Potter, West Kentucky Journal
Friday, June 27, 2014 2:46 pm

(Murray, KY) - June 20, 2014 - A bigger than usual crowd showed up for the Purchase Area Democratic Dinner on a muggy Friday night. Democratic faithful from around the Purchase came to eat, greet, meet and rub elbows with the darling of Kentucky’s Democratic Party, Alison Lundergan Grimes.

And rub elbows, she did. Standing midway of the dinner line, she greeted everyone coming through the line. Many wanted photos with the candidates. Some had campaign suggestions. Others just wanted to shake her hand or give her a hug. Grimes had already traveled the tables chatting.

When the program started, the two other speakers on the program kept their remarks short. Rep. Will Coursey filled in for Auditor Adam Edelen who bowed out after his announcement that he would not be running for governor in 2015. Coursey concentrated on stoking partisan fires before the main event. He told supporters that his bill to increase minimum wage passed in the Democratic House. The bill did not get a hearing in the Republican Senate.

State Treasurer Todd Hollenbach, an elected official who shows up for the Jackson Purchase Dinner whether he’s on the ballot or not, did his usual self effacing speech. He told the crowd that he wondered what he and Coursey could say after Grimes got a standing ovation when she appeared. “I just don’t want to hear a standing ovation when David Ramey (the evening’s moderator) announces that Todd Hollenbach has left the building.”

Hollenbach got the best line of the evening while discussing corporations and money. He quoted a friend who opined that he “would believe a corporation is a person the day Texas executes one of them.” The crowd roared.

Hollenbach also accused Senator McConnell of using “political dark arts” in campaigns over the years. On Election Day, more people hate the other person than hate McConnell.

When it was her turn, Grimes told the crowd that women would make the difference in November. She harkened back to a remark by National Republican Senate Committee Communications Director Brad Dayspring that she is an “empty dress.” Democrats called for Sen. McConnell to repudiate the remark as "degrading and offensive." he has not done so yet. Grimes has embraced the remark and using it often to illustrate McConnell's inability to connect with women.

She vowed to take the fight to McConnell and hold him accountable for thirty years of failed leadership.

She returned to the campaign theme that she will work to grow jobs, unlike her opponent who told an Eastern Kentucky newspaper that it is not his job to create jobs.

Before she left the building, Secretary of State and candidate for the U. S. Senate, Alison Lundergan Grimes stopped to meet with eighth grade students in the Curris Center preparing for a leadership competition in the morning. She chatted with girls from Calloway, Fulton and Carlisle County.

It was, according to one observer, the high point of the girls’ weekend at Murray State.