Dem Donors Give Kentucky's Alison Lundergan Grimes Standing O In Senate Race Against Mitch McConnell

It’s time to start our engines for Kentucky’s Alison Lundergan Grimes, the 34-year-old Democratic secretary of state who intends to take out Senate Minority Speaker Mitch McConnell.

Howard Fineman writes for Huffington Post:

In her first major appearance before national party leaders, Saturday on Martha’s Vineyard, Grimes wowed Democratic senators, Senate candidates and donors alike at the party’s annual private summer fundraising retreat.

Each year the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee invites top donors to schmooze with senators, especially those up for reelection, and inspect the merchandise of challengers who will take on Republican incumbents.

Grimes spoke to the group Saturday morning and brought the jaded and normally undemonstrative crowd to its feet in wild applause, said one top donor, who had been deeply skeptical of the idea that McConnell could be knocked off by anyone.

Grimes made news a couple of weeks ago by announcing her senate run w/o a website in place. Mitch isn’t laughing any more, suggests both Howard Fineman and Kentucky’s Courier Journal. She is the daughter of one of Kentucky’s most prominent politicos, destined for a political future. Deciding to take on Mitch McConnell represents a quick turn in her destiny, but Democratic troops appear ready and enthusiastic to rally around her. 

“I’ve been going to these for years, and I have never, until this morning, seen a candidate get a standing O,” said the donor, who is among the top 100 contributors to the committee over the last five years. “It was amazing.” 

Kentucky’s Courier Journal columnist Al Cross writes that Grimes is a very serious competitor to knock Mitch McConnell out of his senate seat.

1. Author Robert Galbraith, whose debut novel ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ received outstanding debuts , was outed as Harry Potter author J.K.Rowling by London’s Sunday Times newspaper.

“I had hoped to keep this secret a little longer because being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience,” Rowling said. “It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation, and pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name.”

After one reviewer described as a “scintillating debut novel,” while another called it “astonishingly mature”. The novel had sold around 1,500 copies in hardback, before this weekend’s outing.

2. Texas Democrats have vowed to fight in the courts new abortion legislation passed in Austin late Friday night. The Republican majority passed the controversial bill with one Democratic vote. The 20 Democratic amendments to the bill that bans abortions after 20 weeks, requires abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, permits no exceptions for rape or incest, requires all abortions to take place in surgical centers, and offers no leeway in prescribing an abortion-inducing pill were all denied.

The abortion debate in Texas mobilized protests not seen in the last 20 years. “Let’s make sure that tonight is not an ending point, it’s a beginning point for our future, our collective futures, as we work to take this state back,” Democratic Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth told 2,000 supporters gathered in Austin.

3. US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has resigned her position as Homeland Security Secretary to become president of the University of California system. Napolitano was the third person to head the agency created in response to the 9/11 attacks.

Napolitano is the first woman to lead UC’s 145-year history. The LA Times writes that UC regents hope that a highly-visible political personality will be more effective at fundraising and playing an influential role in Sacramento and Washington.

The NY Daily News reports that Senator Chuck Schumer is pushing NYPD Chief Ray Kelly as her replacement.

4. EMILY’s List is on record with their intention to brand Florida Senator Marco Rubio as anti-women ahead of the 2016 elections. Stephanie Schriock, the group’s president, told TIME magazine that the Republican senator is “the most anti-women, anti-family candidate of the GOP field.”

“This is a senator who was one of only 22 Republican men voting against the Violence Against Women Act. He has worked tirelessly to roll back women’s freedom,” says Schriock.

Rubio’s ‘alleged sins’ against women also include his votes against pay equity legislation and support for mandatory ultrasounds in Florida. Rubio called the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, “a gift for trial lawyers”.

Read the New Republic’s analysis ‘There’s No Cure for Marco Rubio’s Abortion Anxiety’.

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5. The Atlantic asks: When Do Women (and Men) Stop Leaning In?, following up on Catherine Rampell’s analysis for the New York Times.

The popular notion that women stop looking for job promotions earlier than men goes under the microscope with another look at 2008 data from the Families and Work Institute. In 2008 just 37 percent of working women and 44 percent of working men wanted more responsibility at the office.

Sheryl Sandberg’s book ‘Lean In’ argues that the gender gap is much higher in the 25-34 and 35-44 age groups. University women and post 45-age women have similar expectations as men.