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" Kentucky secretary of state Alison Lundergan Grimes, a Democrat, is making national headlines for her bid to become the first female U.S. senator in her home state&amp;#039;s history. The 34-year-old former lawyer from Lexington is by all accounts giving the Republican incumbent, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a run for his money in the 2014 race\u2014and she&amp;#039;s just getting started. Here, she shares her thoughts from behind the scenes of one of today&amp;#039;s most buzzed-about political campaigns. You&amp;#039;ve been edging out Senator McConnell in the polls this month, and the Cook Political Report has rated the race a &amp;quot;toss-up.&amp;quot; How does it feel to have the pressure on? There will be many polls taken, and I&amp;#039;ll leave that for John King with his magic board on CNN to delve through and to assess. I have no doubt that I&amp;#039;m the underdog in this race, but I have been the underdog before and finished strong. I plan to do the same in this journey as well. This is a long road ahead of us\u2014we are 14 months out from the general election, and what we&amp;#039;re doing in our campaign is focusing on uniting all Kentuckians, regardless of their party affiliation. Democrat, Republican, or Independent\u2014it&amp;#039;s about bringing everyone together and building the strong foundation that can sustain the course of these next months. McConnell has been courting women&amp;#039;s support of late\u2014offering up interviews with the &amp;quot;strong&amp;quot; women in his life, including his wife and mother, to try to gain an advantage. What&amp;#039;s your response to this angle he&amp;#039;s working? Well, I come from a family of five girls, and our motto was always &amp;quot;You gotta walk the walk, you can&amp;#039;t just talk the talk.&amp;quot; Actions do speak louder than words. Simply being married to a strong female is not enough. Over the course of 28 years, Senator McConnell has continually failed to stand up for the women of Kentucky and women across the nation. And that&amp;#039;s what&amp;#039;s being examined right now\u2014his record, his failure to act on our behalf. When you vote against the Violence Against Women Act, when you don&amp;#039;t believe that women deserve equal pay for equal work, when you vote against the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, those actions speak volumes above any empty rhetoric that you could offer at campaign time. The women of Kentucky and the women of this nation see through that and are ready for a change. They&amp;#039;re ready to have someone who, instead of attacking the executive branch, is ready to attack the many problems that Kentucky and its families are facing right now. How do you find work-life balance between the long hours on the campaign trail and your full-time responsibilities as Kentucky&amp;#039;s secretary of state? I have a very forgiving husband [laughs]. He brings out the best in me, and he reminds me daily not to take myself too seriously and to focus on the bigger picture. He often reminds me of a story that I heard on the campaign trail a couple of years ago: A pastor got up and gave a blessing before I spoke. He said, &amp;quot;Alison, wherever you ramble, wherever you go, keep your eye on the doughnut, and not on its hole.&amp;quot; I try not to get caught up in small details and lose sight of the bigger picture. I&amp;#039;m also blessed to have surrounded myself with some very bright people, both male and female. For example, my assistant secretary of state is a former federal prosecutor. If that doesn&amp;#039;t send you a signal of strength, I don&amp;#039;t know what would! She is a remarkable woman who is constantly working, as I am, to make sure that we are serving all Kentuckians regardless of their party affiliation. That&amp;#039;s the message we&amp;#039;ve translated, and that&amp;#039;s what I learned growing up\u2014you don&amp;#039;t turn your back on Kentuckians, whether they be the mother, whether they be the young child that&amp;#039;s just going to school, whether they be our veterans, whether they be our seniors\u2014we help to lift everybody up. How does it feel to be compared with other major female leaders in the news today, such as Kamala Harris and Kathleen Kane? It&amp;#039;s a huge honor, but as I said, it&amp;#039;s about keeping yourself grounded and remembering who we&amp;#039;re doing this for and why we&amp;#039;re doing it. I originally decided to leave the courtroom as a practicing attorney and venture into public service after finishing a case when I helped a victim of domestic violence obtain an emergency protective order. The tear in her eye when she said that she and her young daughter finally felt safe made me see that perhaps I could do more good outside the courtroom. That&amp;#039;s who I&amp;#039;m fighting for. How long had you considered running before Ashley Judd announced she would not be entering the race? What is your relationship with her like? I have great respect for the work that Ashley does. This was a race that Kentuckians brought to me. After 28 years of dysfunction in Washington, DC, they&amp;#039;re ready to have someone who actually puts their voice first. Senator McConnell proudly wears a badge of honor: the guardian of gridlock. Gridlock, obstruction, and partisanship are literally what the Republican Party has come to stand for, and people are tired of it. Before I officially launched my campaign, I really wanted to make sure that I had taken the time to speak with those who helped me get to where I am. And since our kickoff at the end of July, with a couple thousand of our great friends from across Kentucky, the momentum for this campaign has continued to build each and every day. We have people every day come up to tell us that they might be a Republican, but they&amp;#039;re so excited about this. Or they&amp;#039;re Independent, but they&amp;#039;re behind this campaign. Your video campaign announcement has been a big success\u2014do you think a viral, digital strategy is a significant part of being a politician nowadays? Has social media been an important part of your campaign? I think it&amp;#039;s an outgrowth of the reality that exists today\u2014you have to reach people where they&amp;#039;re located. That requires being on the ground in person, it requires being on the air on TV, and it also requires reaching the youth digitally. It&amp;#039;s a matter of connecting. No matter the dollars that will be raised in this race, and the mud that I&amp;#039;m prepared to have coming my way\u2014as past races have demonstrated, that&amp;#039;s a tactic of Senator McConnell&amp;#039;s\u2014Kentuckians want and crave connection. That&amp;#039;s how I was able to draw 60 percent of the vote when I ran for secretary of state\u2014it was about connecting with people. And it starts with making sure they know who you are and why you&amp;#039;re in this. Can you speak a bit about your personal style and how the way you dress relates to your campaign and the way you think you&amp;#039;re perceived? I think my husband would probably say my wardrobe and image are classic, strong, and always prepared for a little bit of the unexpected. We have 13- and 14-hour days on the campaign trail, so obviously comfort is key. And when I&amp;#039;m getting dressed early in the morning, I just hope that I&amp;#039;m putting on matching shoes at that point! But I think my style communicates strength and hopefully empowers women across Kentucky to see that if I can do this, they sure can as well. It&amp;#039;s about showing that I&amp;#039;m able to relate to the thousands of women across the commonwealth who want to have their voices heard. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/interviews/a14392/alison-lundergan-grimes-interview/>