This Liberal Sports Radio Host Thinks He Can Take Down Mitch McConnell
He might be right.
By ADAM WILLIS March 25, 2018
During Mitch McConnell’s fifth reelection campaign, in 2014, he called into Kentucky Sports Radio unannounced. When Matt Jones, the show’s host and founder, welcomed the senator onto the program, it was hard to miss the hint of smug satisfaction in his rough-hewn mountain accent. Jones, who had been taunting McConnell on air for several weeks, went straight for a favorite jab, questioning the senator’s college basketball allegiances. McConnell has degrees from both the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville and steadfastly refuses to pick a favorite between the two rival NCAA teams.
“Let me just say something,” McConnell interjected as Jones, a University of Kentucky fan, teed up his Kentucky-Louisville question. “It is OK—I know it’s probably not acceptable to you, as an Obama enthusiast—but it’s OK to be for both Louisville and Kentucky.”
“What does me being an Obama supporter have to do with Kentucky versus Louisville?” Jones laughed.
From there, the conversation shifted from basketball to the minimum wage, same-sex marriage and global warming—13 minutes of tense radio that might provide a preview of what the Senate majority leader is in for in his 2020 reelection race. Jones, the unabashedly liberal voice of the most popular radio show in the state, says he plans to oppose McConnell in Kentucky’s next election cycle if the senator chooses to run for another term. And some political observers say he might actually have a shot at ousting one of the most powerful figures in the Republican Party.
Jones has made McConnell a frequent target on his show in recent years, using the senator’s equivocation between the state’s two rival basketball programs as a proxy attack on his character. In Kentucky, where basketball reverence verges on the religious, anyone who claims dual loyalty is seen either as a liar or severely out of touch. To Jones, McConnell is both—in politics as well as sports. He calls out the Senate majority leader’s faux advocacy for Kentucky coal country, his “morally repugnant” tax bill and his allegiance to wealthy elites. Kentucky is a state of outsiders, Jones likes to point out—working-class people who have, for more than 30 years, been represented by Washington’s consummate insider. (McConnell’s office didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.)
more
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/25/adam-jones-kentucky-mitch-mcconnell-sports-radio-217656?lo=ap_f1
= new reply since forum marked as read
