BY JOSEPH GERTH | COURIER-JOURNAL | OCTOBER 17, 2009
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Kentucky Democrats came together Saturday to rejuvenate themselves as national polls suggest uncertainty about the party’s policies on health care and the economy.
“We are on the right side of history,” U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Louisville, told a gathering at a Democratic picnic at The Red Mile race track in Lexington.
He acknowledged that Democrat’s in congress have seen their approval ratings fall in the past year “but we aren’t anywhere near as low as the Republicans in Congress and we’re not as low as (Republican U.S. Senator) Jim Bunning’s and were not anywhere near as low as (Senate Minority Leader) Mitch McConnell’s.”
The picnic preceded the party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner where Ret. Gen. Wesley Clark, who ran for president in 2004, was the event’s headliner.
At the picnic, Clark told the crowd to “Stand up for your values. … We know what we stand for as Democrats.”
He called on President Barack Obama to continue a new national defense policy where the idea is “not to just carry a big stick but to make more friends than enemies.”
