Louisville Lineman Looks for Unity in ‘10

Kevin Harris, a 29-year member of Louisville, Ky., Local 2100, a lineman at Louisville Gas and Electric hasn’t found a politician that he agrees with on every issue.  He says he decides who to vote for based on whether they are “generally pushing in the right direction.”

That approach leaves no doubt where he stands on the Senate race between Republican Tea Party-supported candidate Rand Paul and Democrat Jack Conway, Kentucky’s Attorney General. 

Kevin Harris, a lineman at Louisville Gas and Electric says
“No” to U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul’s divisive message.

Responding to Paul’s statement, made at the start of his campaign, that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was “unfair” to businesses by telling them they couldn’t discriminate, Harris says:

My mother was born in 1918 in Huntsville, Ala. when black people were still fighting for the right to vote.  She taught me not to hate others, but I came up in the civil rights movement and I’ve been voting since I was 18 because it was a high priority on my mom’s list. I could never vote for Rand Paul because he would set this country back 50 years.

Conway, says Harris, “has a more realistic view of life, society and the way things should be and he’s pushing in the right direction.”

Rand Paul and media personalities like Rush Limbaugh, says Harris, undermine the unity that is necessary to come to grips with the problems facing our nation.  Harris has seen progress in his home town.  He remembers the protests and riots against school busing for desegregation in Louisville.  Thirty years later, he says, some who were on opposite sides of the fence are best of friends.  He also coaches a football team that is 95 percent white.  He says:

I’ve learned that we often fear people we don’t understand.  Rand Paul has a right to his beliefs and so do his supporters, but Kentucky and America need unity, not division.