By The Courier-Journal

Kentucky stands at a critical threshold as its U.S. Senate election approaches.

On Nov. 4, voters could choose the familiar persona of Republican incumbent Mitch McConnell, 72, who is seeking a sixth Senate term after 30 years in office.

Or Kentuckians can risk crossing the threshold into the future by voting for a young, relatively untested Democratic challenger who nonetheless offers intelligence, energy and clear potential to take on the job as Kentucky's next U.S. senator.

We urge voters to choose the future and elect Alison Lundergan Grimes.

Ms. Grimes, 35, a lawyer and Kentucky's secretary of state, has tackled an enormous challenge in taking on Mr. McConnell, a legendarily formidable political foe and, as Senate minority leader, one of the nation's most powerful Republicans.

At times her campaign has been cautious to the extreme as she sought to walk a political tightrope between the many conservative Kentucky Democrats, whose votes she needs, and progressive Democrats who wait in vain for her to hew more forcefully to the traditional liberal values of their party.

That excessive caution culminated with her refusal, in an interview with The Courier-Journal editorial board, to say even whether she voted for President Barack Obama, who remains deeply unpopular among many voters in the South. Kentucky is no exception and by distancing herself from the president, Ms. Grimes falls into the trap of the ongoing destructive Republican disparagement of Mr. Obama that Mr. McConnell has cunningly exploited.

But Ms. Grimes, to her credit, was willing to appear before this newspaper's editorial board, fielding an hour's worth of questions in an interview that was streamed live online and remains archived on the C-J website. She did this fully aware that Mr. McConnell's campaign could — and did — seize on snippets to use in political attacks.

Mr. McConnell, in turn, never accepted a similar invitation dating back to early September to appear before the C-J editorial board, thus shielding himself from scrutiny as well as any potential for attack ads based on his responses. Kentuckians should take measure of that: Thirty years in the Senate, and no comment.

More discouraging — and most important to voters — is that he appears lacking a vision for Kentucky or the country as a whole. Rather, his decades-long drive to increase his power and political standing has resulted in this campaign based on his boast that if he is re-elected and Republicans win a Senate majority, he would become Senate majority leader. Some voters believe Kentucky will benefit from keeping Mr. McConnell in such a national leadership position, but we believe that alone is not a reason for giving him another term.

Both candidates have failed the voters through limited access, rote talking points, slickly packaged appearances and a barrage of attack ads that at best are misleading and at worst, outright false.

But Ms. Grimes has laid out positions on a number of issues that matter to voters, ones that separate her from her opponent.

• Health care. Ms. Grimes supports the Affordable Care Act and Kynect, Kentucky's version of the federal health law that now provides about 520,000 Kentuckians with health coverage and access to care. While Ms. Grimes says she would work to "streamline" and improve the law, she does not seek its repeal.

Mr. McConnell repeatedly has vowed to repeal it "root and branch." More recently, as Kynect grows in acceptance and popularity, he has adopted the bizarre claim that Kynect is just "a website" that somehow could operate independently if the federal law is repealed.

Of course it can't — it's a fully operational, online state health exchange with a website Kentuckians are using by the hundreds of thousands to purchase health insurance or sign up for Medicaid through the federally backed program.

• Coal and jobs. While both candidates have indulged in "War on Coal" rhetoric, Ms. Grimes offers proposals to save coal jobs through investing in clean coal technology. She also supports creating jobs outside coal through increased federal job training programs, expanding apprenticeships, improving technical and vocational education and expanding high speed Internet throughout Kentucky to lure employers.

She also has won the endorsement of the United Mine Workers Union through pledges to enforce coal safety regulations and improve processing of claims for black lung disease, which stubbornly persists among miners.

• Workers, women and families. Ms. Grimes supports an increase in the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. She supports eliminating the wage gap between men and women. And she supports federal help making child care more affordable to working parents.

• Education. Early childhood education including pre-school and Head Start is a priority for Ms. Grimes who says the U.S. must invest more in such programs reduce poverty and improve opportunities for children.

• Social issues. Though voters have not ranked these as important as others in the Bluegrass Poll, Ms. Grimes supports abortion access, describing it as "a personal choice between a woman, her doctor and her God" and she believes all couples, regardless of gender, should be able to make the commitment of marriage.

In his long career in politics, starting as Jefferson County judge-executive, Mr. McConnell has in the past effectively served his community and his state. In more recent years, some credited him with roles in pulling the nation from the brink of the fiscal cliff and breaking several deadlocks in Congress, including helping end the 16-day government shutdown last year.

But as the stakes grew higher and campaigns more costly, he lost his way to the point where he now is identified largely as the master of obstruction and gridlock in Washington.

Kentucky needs a U.S. senator who sees a higher calling than personal ambition and a greater goal than self-aggrandizement. For those reasons and for her evident potential, we endorse Ms. Grimes for election on Nov. 4.

Candidates not endorsed are invited to respond. Letters of no more than 150 words will be published if received by 10 a.m. Tuesday. Please email responses to cjletter@courier-journal.com (put "endorsement response" in the subject line).