Kentucky Dems Are Trying to Punk Ashley Judd Into a Run

The idea of Ashley Judd actually winning a Senate race against Mitch McConnell is, of course, delightful to Democrats—but it'll never happen, writes Jonathan Chait in a Daily Intelligencer piece titled, "Don’t Run for Senate, Ashley Judd! It’s a Trap!" Kentucky is incredibly conservative, making it difficult, if not impossible, for Democrats to win statewide races there. And Judd, in particular, doesn't stand a chance considering she's even less conservative than the national Democratic party. She's "completely and utterly doomed to lose."

The one thing Judd would accomplish? She would raise a lot of money—and Kentucky Democrats know it. That money would be spent "bolstering turnout across the state, which would help other Democrats, most of whom would be distancing themselves from Judd" because she's too much of a Hollywood liberal, Chait notes. That's what makes this whole campaign to get Judd to run kind of like the "evil husband" of her Double Jeopardy character, "who seduced her and then exploited her for an insurance scam." Click for Chait's full column. (More Ashley Judd stories.)