Presidential Motorcade Causes Election Day Traffic Jams In Kentucky While Obama Sits At White House
The presidentâs motorcade always causes traffic issues wherever President Obama chooses to visit.Â And usually, Obama is actually in said motorcade when those problems arise. But that wasnât the case today, when President Obamaâs motorcade caused severe traffic issues for more than a full hour in Lexington, Kentucky, on the morning of the midterm electionsâ¦ while President Obama was at the White House, nearly nine hours away. Obamaâs phantom motorcade arrived in Lexington at approximately 10 am EST, and cruised from Masterson Station Park down to the University of Kentucky, before then turning northeast and heading to the Lexington Country Club. Most of this was done on side streetsâ¦ and locals say the motorcade cruised by a number of polling stations along the way. âI saw all these flashing lights right outside the voting place, and I was like `holy sât, is that the president?'â Says Tom Miller. âThey were going pretty slow, maybe ten or fifteen miles an hour, and traffic was dead all around. Folks were waving and such, but I guess he wasnât even in the car. [laughs] thatâs Obama for you, people waving and he ainât even there.â President Obama was indeed not in Lexington, Kentucky today. His public schedule shows Obama staying at the White House all day, and that he was receiving his daily presidential briefing at 10 am, when his motorcade was cruising the streets of Lexington. So why was the Secret Service parading âCadillac Oneâ and the rest of the vehicular entourage around in Kentucky? One local citizen had a theory. âI think heâs trying to mess with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell,â says Lexington native Paul Horner, who works for McConnellâs reelectionÂ campaignÂ . âThis city votes red.Â  This midterm election isÂ pretty much in the bag for Mitch, here in Lexington anyway. So Obama sends his motorcade down here, and itâs driving around Lexington aimlessly, for what? What are we supposed to think? Itâs pretty obvious he sent it down here intentionally, to try and tilt things in favor of Alison Lundergan Grimes.â ButÂ retired Secret Service agent Mike OâConnell, also from Lexington, says it may have just been a simple training exercise. âWe used to take the motorcade out, back in the Reagan days, and drive it around in a similar pattern through a random American city. Weâd usually do it once a month or so. Itâs a great way to learn traffic patterns and see how the motorcade works in those environments. Iâm guessing it was related to that.â So what really happened? Did the Secret Service deploy the presidential motorcade in Lexington as a part of a training exercise? Or did President Obama order the motorcade to cruise around in Lexington with the hopes of causing traffic delays that might deter Republicans from voting in the midterm election? We may never know. Â