Kentucky doesn’t trust Senator Mitch McConnell, and our collective distrust of the 30-year Washington, D.C. veteran has made this year’s campaign particularly interesting. Perhaps the only politician we collectively hate and distrust more is President Barack Obama.

But perception and reality are always playing different ballgames. The fact is that many of Obama’s policies, and those of prominent Democrats, are very popular in the Bluegrass state.

Polls show that we support raising the minimum wage by a slight margin. A majority of Kentuckians want legalization of marijuana for medical purposes, and more than 50 percent of Americans approve of gay marraige.

Kynect, the Kentucky product of Obama’s health care reformation enjoys more support than opposition. More than half a million Kentuckians have signed up for health care through the website in the last year. Just about the only Obama policies Kentucky doesn’t like are his coal and immigration stances.

So last month when President Obama was at Northwestern University, he made a calculated decision. He said that every one of his policies were on the ballot in November. His goal was to motivate two important voting demographics — the poor and the independent.

Poor voters, who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, show up to the polls a lot less when there is not a president on the ballot.

These voters were key in helping Obama win in 2008 and 2012. If they show up to vote tomorrow it might be enough to push democrats over the hump and keep their majority in the Senate. Independents also largely favor many of the Obama policies, and the president was hoping he could swing them in favor of Democrats.

Unfortunately for Democrats, President Obama was using an outdated calculator. The anti-Obama sentiment is so strong in many states, and many voters, including those in Kentucky, will vote against policies they support simply because President Obama has put his name on them.

Kynect is a perfect example.

While Kynect enjoys support in the state, Obamacare remains deeply unpopular despite being the same program under a different name. Senator McConnell has insisted we could keep Kynect if we uprooted the rest of the Affordable Care Act, but it would not be the same exchange over half a million Kentuckians have used.

This Obama paradox may cost Grimes the race, and may cost the Democrats the Senate. For months, Grimes had been trailing McConnell because she had refused to take a stand on key issues, making it easy for McConnell to label her as a minion of Obama.

However, when she started to identify where she stood on policy issues, momentum started to swing. She stood for many of the issues Kentuckians cared about, and against Obama on coal and immigration. She had a very good interview with Kentucky Sports Radio, and the Clintons visited Kentucky as often as bourbon investors.

McConnell continued to insist on the link between Obama and Grimes, but because of Kentucky’s collective distrust for our veteran Senator, it didn’t work. A poll taken at the beginning of October showed Grimes with a slim lead.

McConnell panicked and made a few uncharacteristic mistakes. He called in to Kentucky Sports Radio in what was largely seen as a confrontational and angry interview.

He tried to attack Grimes for her refusal to say who she voted for, and put out ads of D.C. insiders far removed from our farms, factories and coal mines telling us she was unqualified to become a Senator. Many Kentuckians didn’t buy it. We have a good idea of who she voted for in 2012. It insults Kentucky’s intelligence to say we didn’t.

McConnell regained a one-percentage point lead. Then the ads hit the air. It was as though McConnell himself had written the script for President Obama. “Make no mistake: these policies are on the ballot. Every single one of them.” The president just made the link McConnell had been trying to make for months.

Despite many of his policies being popular, he is not. All voters could hear was the president saying that Democrats supported his coal agenda, his gun agenda, his immigration agenda and, perhaps most disastrously, his economic agenda.

Economy and jobs rank highest in concern among voters, despite the fact that the economy is growing top-heavy. For 80, 90 and by some measurements even 99 percent of Americans, the economy is doing nothing but causing pain.

McConnell now has a five-percentage point lead in the poll released on Friday. There is no doubt he will be holding his breath tomorrow, but the president has given him a little breathing room.

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