FRANKFORT, Ky. — The primary election is on June 23. Spectrum News 1’s political reporter Michon Lindstrom sat down with Democrat U.S. Senate Candidate Mike Broihier who is hoping to take on the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in November.
Q. The race is in about a week how are you feeling?
A. Really, really good. This is an interesting race no one has any idea how this is gonna go, but very, very optimistic and still lots of support coming in and, you know, it's a feeling very positive.
Q. In the past two weeks I think we've seen a shift in the race are you feeling that on your end? Are you feeling momentum pick up for your campaign?
A. Yeah, I think that I think that finally people have realized that the Washington Democrats don't get to pick their candidate. I think probably the watershed moment was the KET debate. I think that if this was a normal year and I don't even know what normal is anymore, we would have been on stage together, much, much more, you know the candidates, but I think that on KET, it really showed people that there are some really good choices in this race, and they don't have to listen to what Washington tells them is their choices so yeah I'm feeling good then of course we just yesterday, I picked up a key endorsement here in Kentucky, which was fantastic, you know, my wife and I visited Wendell Berry, and his wife Tanya at their home yesterday, and after we talked, just talk farming and rural life and social issues, and at the end of our conversation. Mr. Berry said that he was going to endorse my campaign, which is huge for someone of his stature and importance not just in Kentucky but in not just the farming circles but he's been writing about social justice issues since the 70s, and it was wonderful to be able to sit at someone's kitchen table like Wendell Berry for three hours and drink coffee and just talk farming. It was kind of felt like I was playing hooky from campaigning for a couple hours.
Q. How has it been campaigning during a pandemic? I know early on in your campaign you were on the road and you were putting hundreds of miles on your car and really in March, we had to have a whole new adjustment to your campaign.
A. I was fortunate that when Andrew Yang closed his national campaign, a lot of staffers just started driving to Kentucky, because they said okay this is the next most important race, and they're just incredibly smart, and agile and when the pandemic hit they said, 'Okay, now we're going to campaign this way'. And so they've been really good at, you know, today I think I've got six interviews stacked up you, of course, here's the most important, but I have six interviews stacked up. And that's what a typical day looks like talking to rural weekly newspapers, and people in the country read the role of weeklies spent an hour this morning on a local radio station Cynthiana during their morning farmer talk show. And so, my team just really gracefully switched gears and said, All right, now we can't play this way so I think that, while the other campaigns on both sides probably got caught flat footed by this. I was just fortunate to have some groundwork in place, and then people who just were willing, you know to seamlessly switch gears and just campaign in a different way.
Q. I do want to switch to the protests and specifically Breonna Taylor, what do you think should be done. Do you think those police officers involved should be fired in and charged?
A. Oh, definitely and I think that we're long overdue for criminal justice overhaul. I've actually over the last couple weeks been working very closely with some community leaders and retired law enforcement officers, and mental health counselors coming up with a real comprehensive plan to do criminal justice overhaul in this country. And it's long overdue. I think part of it, of course, is breaking the hold that the police unions have on the hiring and firing of law enforcement officers, when the mayor and the Chief of Police of a city like Louisville can't fire a cop, there's something really wrong, and that's why people are calling, many cities like Minneapolis for defunding the police, not because they don't want there to be police but they feel they have to rebuild from the ground up and reimagine what enforcement looks like in our country--that we call 911 your choices just aren't a firetruck, an ambulance or a guy with a gun and a badge, you know, which is what which options that we should have that those aren't the only things that show up if there is a problem at your home when you call 911. So, I think that the protests that we see in Louisville, Lexington and around the country are righteous and are drawing attention to a problem that the African American community has known for a long time. And now it's really the front of consciousness, but with this campaign we do need to keep our eye on the ball because the ball is Mitch McConnell, and while we have a pandemic, and we have protests and all these other things. McConnell keeps wanting to pack the federal courts, and as he's told us before he's changing America forever and while we are focused on the news of the moment he reconvened the Senate to elevate Justin Walker to the Circuit Court. I mean put all those people at risk, he was asked by a CNN reporter what's on his legislative agenda for the rest of the year and he said judges, judges, judges because these cases that we're talking about right now particularly having to do with police violence, these are the roots civil rights cases. And the first person they're going to see is probably a trouble and we need to break that cycle, because they are hostile to women, they're hostile people of color, to labor to immigrants LGBTQ persons, they're hostile to everybody and if Mitch McConnell says it’s his priority we got to take him at his word and break the cycle.
Q. I saw you tweeted that you believe that Mayor Greg Fischer should resign. Why do you feel that way?
A. I think, when all of a sudden the police don't have body cameras on, when you don't even have that degree of control, that when we say ‘okay, let's see the body camera' it's like well the police didn't have the body cameras on when you've lost that degree of control over your law enforcement and then the history of the LMPD, when you can't even exercise that degree of control to sort out who shot somebody, that’s time to go and I'm sorry about that but it's time, it's time to resign.
Q. You have an ad out hitting Amy McGrath and saying you're really the only the only real Democrat in the race. If Amy McGrath is the candidate will you support her?
A. I will support her. I’m going to support anybody who's running against Mitch McConnell, absolutely. I want to be me. I think being able to campaign in 120 counties in Kentucky is very important. And while people have been focusing on raising money out of town, or focusing on hyper specific local issues, as important as they are, you have to break the cycle of 35 years Mitch McConnell, you got to compete all across Kentucky. As a farmer, as a veteran, as a teacher, I'm the guy who can do that. Of course I will support whoever runs against Mitch McConnell, but I think it should be me.
Q. Why are you the one who will beat Mitch McConnell?
A. Because I can win and all 120 counties. And that's just it, you know, to be to be a farmer, like real honest to god bend over and pick the crops farmer with the soil under your fingernails, to been a teacher in the public schools and then being retired veteran helps to relate to an awful lot of people here in Kentucky. And that's what you have to do, you just cannot focus on the two largest cities as it has been that's been a formula for disaster against Mitch McConnell, for the last 35 years and frankly, you can talk progressive ideas and it's kind of this assumption that people, particularly outside of Kentucky make that you cannot talk about progressive ideas with people in the country, and you can, people in Kentucky are you know, while they may be conservative or they may have, you know, a great deal of investment in their religious faith, they also got a great deal of common sense. And if you can explain to them why something is not only just, but is the right thing to do, but it is affordable and it lifts you know lifts all boats, you can talk about progressive ideas to people but you got to be convincing, and you can't talk down to people, can't lecture them and say this is the way it is. I spent five years working on a local newspaper and three years as the editor, and you learn really quickly that if you want to get your message across you can't talk down to people, and you learn how to be convincing even some ideas that might be a little bit alien to them.