I’m all for Speaker Pelosi’s plan to have articles of impeachment brought up against Trump, but I know of at least one Democrat who is going to be put into a political bind because of this move — Amy McGrath of Kentucky.  No, this is not some theoretical political bind that McGrath will be in.  McGrath has centered her U.S. Senate campaign on a message that she agrees with Trump on parts of his agenda, and the failure for not passing Trump’s campaign promises lies at Senator Mitch McConnell’s feet.  McGrath is attempting to focus solely on McConnell and not offend Trump voters in Kentucky.  When the House votes to impeach Trump, McGrath will be asked, “If you were in the Senate, how would you vote during the Senate Trial on the articles of impeachment passed by the House?”  And this is where the inherent stupidity of McGrath’s campaign message will literally hit the road.

And yes it is a stupid campaign strategy and message.  First, McGrath is sending a not so subtle message of being a Trump Democrat.  Yes, I said it again for those who do not like that moniker for McGrath.  But you have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to see that is the signal that McGrath is sending.

Democrat Amy McGrath tried to make new ally on Tuesday morning as she announced before a national audience she would challenge Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell in the 2020 election.

McConnell, she said, has prevented President Donald Trump from accomplishing much of his agenda during his first two and a half years in office.

“If you think about why Kentuckians voted for Trump, they wanted to drain the swamp, and Trump said that he was going to do that,” McGrath said during an interview on MSNBC's Morning Joe. “Trump promised to bring back jobs. He promised to lower drug prices for so many Kentuckians. And that is very important.

“And you know what? Who stops them along the way? Who stops the president from doing these things? Mitch McConnell. And I think that that’s very important, and that’s going to be my message – the things that Kentuckians voted for Trump for are not being done. He’s not able to get it done because of Senator McConnell.”

And McGrath has steadfastly avoided criticizing Trump.  The ploy here is that Kentuckians still love Trump, but they don’t care about McConnell.  McGrath figures if she can avoid talking about Trump and keep her fire on McConnell she will “thread that needle” come election time in November 2020.  

This is not going to work because of that little thing called impeachment.

Once the House votes to impeach Trump, McGrath will be asked how she would vote if she were in the Senate.  It will happen.  While McGrath has stated she is all for the impeachment inquiry, she has not commented any further on impeachment.  But given she was already asked other hypotheticals like “How would you have voted on Brett Kavanaugh?”, the impeachment question will come up.

And there is the political bind for pro-Trump Democrat Amy McGrath.  Go along with the evidence and vote to convict Trump, and piss off all those Trump supporters in Kentucky.  Or piss off the Democratic base by saying she would vote to acquit Trump.

This is the problem with being a Trump Democrat.  There is no bottom with Trump corruption.  The “drain the swamp” BS is just that.  If you agree with Trump on somethings and want to work with him, how about all those other corrupt things Trump does like trying to rig elections with foreign help?

Before the Ukraine scandal, there were three other Democrats who were running Senate contests in 2018 who tried the “I work with Trump on issues I agree with him on” message:  Donnelly of Indiana, McCaskill of Missouri, and Bredesen of TN.  Hey!  They all border Kentucky!  And guess what happened to those intrepid souls?  They all lost.

To be honest, any Democrat running to challenge Moscow Mitch is going to have to run across some World War I landscape.  The Democratic Senate nominee in Kentucky is likely to get slaughtered in 2020.  Despite not being liked, Moscow Mitch has money, and he knows how to manipulate the voters in Kentucky.  And Kentucky is now a red state.  And Moscow Mitch has made it clear that he has tied himself to the mast of the U.S.S. Trump.

But despite all that, running in Kentucky and hoping to avoid criticizing Trump when he is on the ballot as an impeached president is just stupid.  McGrath will have to make a choice because of impeachment, and whatever her answer, it will make her previous stance on Trump look either cynical or craven.