If you ever pitched a baseball game — even in Little League — you know the feeling when you’ve got your stuff.
You’re 10-feet-tall and unhittable.
Amy McGrath looked like Hall of Fame Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax in tonight’s TV debate against Mitch McConnell. She had her stuff.
McConnell probably figured just showing up would be enough to win the war of words. After all, he’d bested six straight Democrats, most by comfortable margins, in three dozen years.
After all, before she tossed her hat in the ring against McConnell, McGrath had run just one race – for Congress two years ago. She lost.
McConnell should have known better. An Annapolis grad, McGrath was the first woman Marine to fly in a jet in combat. She spent 20 years in the Corps, earned gold pilot’s wings and retired a lieutenant colonel.
McGrath was unflappable. She was unfazed by McConnell, who prides himself on practicing take-no-prisoners politics.
Her confidence and poise waxed with every question from the moderator and every verbal thrust-and-parry with McConnell. She had a solid grip on facts and issues, kept cool, and carried on.
In 1965, Sandy Koufax and the Dodgers faced the Chicago Cubs. That September 9th game turned out to be a classic: 27 Cubs up, 27 down.
Maybe McGrath didn’t pitch a perfect game. But she gave as good or more as she got.
McGrath seemed happy to be there. McConnell didn’t. Oh, he forced his famous thin-lipped smile, and occasionally even chuckled. (The fact that McConnell seemed to laugh at the number of Americans dead of COVID did not go unnoticed.)
He was his usual smarmy, condescending self. He mansplained. Then he stepped in it. “I think her entire campaign is: She’s a Marine, she’s a mom and I’ve been there too long,” he scoffed. (Almost certainly, we will see this line in McGrath ads.)
In return, McGrath smiled and served up the high heat: “Senator, you’ve been there for 36 years. How’s it looking, Kentucky?”
There was no joy in McConnellville – mighty Mitch had struck out.
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