Edelen to form grassroots group for Democrats
Former state Auditor Adam Edelen and sports talk show host Matt Jones plan to launch a new political organization that will focus on developing new ideas and talent at the grassroots level in an effort to rebuild Kentucky’s ailing Democratic Party.
“This organization will be future-focused,” Edelen said in an interview. “It is a way to come up with ideas relevant to the lives of people. It will be an idea factory and an identifier of new talent who are drawn to these new ideas.”
As of now, the group doesn’t have a name, and Edelen said he’s unsure when it will officially form – saying he and Jones want to make sure they are complying with election and campaign finance laws before taking the first step. Insider Louisville first reported that Jones and Edelen were forming the organization.
Edelen said the organization won’t be a shadow Democratic Party but is intended to augment what the Kentucky Democratic Party is doing, which he said appears to have found its footing with the selection of state Rep. Sannie Overly as its new chairman and its single-minded pursuit of keeping a Democratic majority in the state House.
“This not be a division or a faction, this is just focused on getting new people driven by new ideas,” he said.
Overly issued a statement Tuesday welcoming the new organization.
“The Kentucky Democratic Party welcomes new ideas and new energy and we look forward to working with Matt and Adam to build our party,” she said. “I will be reaching out to Matt and Adam in hopes they will engage their new organization to help the hardworking rank-andfile Democrats who are raising money, knocking on doors and doing what they can to keep the House, which should be the top goal of every Democrat in the Commonwealth right now.”
Edelen, who served one term as state auditor and then was upset by Republican Mike Harmon last year when Democrats took a drubbing, has said that he planned to run for something in the future but not before there were “bluer skies” for Democratic candidates.
Jones, who founded Kentucky Sports Radio, toyed with the idea of running for the U.S. Senate this year against Sen. Rand Paul but ultimately dropped out.
Edelen said he and Jones have been in discussions with about 20 people but he wouldn’t name them.
“The working group we have currently reflects Kentucky in terms of geography demographically and world view,” he said.
The group will also not have any particular political agenda as far as pulling the party further left or further right.
“I think the DLC is a good model,” he said of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council that powered Bill Clinton to the presidency in 1992. “Our goal is not to move the party in a new direction, it’s an attempt to develop ideas after we’ve seen the tragic consequences in an election that isn’t about ideas.”
Edelen said he didn’t know if the group would be involved in raising money to be spent on mailers, television and radio ads but that it is a possibility.
By Joseph Gerth
The Courier-Journal
