KENTUCKY’S
KING
choice and a supporter of Planned
Parenthood. Yarmuth says that after his stint with Cook, McConnell
boasted about his work on behalf
of the Equal Rights Amendment.
Yarmuth himself is now serving a
fourth term in the House of Representatives, after switching parties to become a Democrat in the
mid-1980s.
Back home, Louisville in the
1970s was experiencing a progressive heyday. The city’s new
Democratic mayor, Harvey
Sloane, a doctor by trade, had
spent two years in Appalachia
as part of President John F. Kennedy’s health care initiative. In
Louisville, he set up a health
center that served primarily African Americans in the West End
neighborhood, which helped him
launch a political career. As mayor, Sloane started an emergency
medical service and helped create
a public transportation system.
Neighborhoods began to invest in
historic preservation. The county
started an ecology court to tackle
environmental crimes.
“The community was in a cando frame of mind,” Sloane recalls.
“Those were times where people
were willing to step up to the plate.”
The city still had plenty of
HUFFINGTON
08.11.13
“IT WAS NOT THE LOCAL MITCH
McCONNELL THAT BECAME
THE PROBLEM. IT WAS
WHAT HE BECAME WHEN HE
WENT TO WASHINGTON.”
problems that needed solving, of
course, with deeply entrenched
racism at the forefront. In 1975,
courts ordered local officials to
implement a new busing program
in an effort to desegregate the
school system. For a time, uglier
forces prevailed. The Klan showed
up and mass anti-busing demonstrations were held. After a calm
first day of school, mobs burned
buses, attempted to block firefighters from putting out blazes
and attacked the police. The National Guard had to be brought in
to restore order.
McConnell had witnessed government’s righteous potential under Sens. Cooper and Cook, and
he wanted to lead it. As Dyche
notes in his biography, McConnell tried to distinguish himself
during Watergate by coming out
for campaign finance reform in
a Courier-Journal op-ed: “Many
qualified and ethical persons are
either totally priced out of the
election marketplace or will not