Uh, what????
Secretary of State Trey Grayson has criticized his opponent in next year's Republican U.S. Senate primary for refusing to promise to support fellow Kentuckian Mitch McConnell as the Senate minority leader.
In an interview with WHAS-TV earlier this week, Bowling Green ophthalmologist Rand Paul declined to say if he would support McConnell for another term as Senate GOP leader if he is challenged by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina.
“I like both of them, and I don't know that I could make a judgment. I have to win the primary first,” Paul said in the interview. “So I don't think I'd make a judgment on how I'd vote for a leader, but I think obviously Kentucky having a leader is good for Kentucky. “
The sniping between the two Republican camps is less interesting than what they're sniping about: the possibility of a DeMint challenge to McConnell as Senate Republican leader. What, McConnell isn't crazy enough?
Still, it makes sense. DeMint has recently taken on the role as high-profile backer of teabagger alternatives to establishment Republicans. DeMint was one of the first major figures to endorse Marco Rubio in the Florida GOP primary, as well as Doug Hoffman in the NY-23 special election. More recently, he backed über wingnut Chuck DeVore against the establishment-backed Carly Fiorina in the GOP Senate primary in California.
Not to mention, it was DeMint's endorsement of Pat Toomey in the Pennsylvania GOP primary that may have led to Arlen Specter's defection to the Democratic Party.
Last Thursday night on the Senate floor, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., told Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, then still a Republican, that DeMint would be supporting Specter’s rival, former Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., in next year’s Senate Republican primary. DeMint says Specter “pretty much cut me off and said, ‘I’ve heard enough.’”
DeMint wouldn’t speculate whether this conversation spurred Specter to switch parties, but the conversation came within hours of the release of a poll showing Toomey leading Specter among primary voters 51 percent to 30 percent. “We knew Pat was going to win the primary,” DeMint said in a Capitol Hill interview Tuesday, minutes after Specter announced his move. “This [party switch] shouldn’t surprise anyone. It was a clever political move.”
What would a DeMint-run Senate look like? Here's a hint -- after bragging about helping push out Specter, he said:
I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs.
Maybe Minority Leader DeMint would have similar conversations with Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, and even conservatives that fail the purity litmus test, like Lindsey Graham and Lisa Murkowski. He could splinter the GOP in two, creating a Caucus of the Crazy along with BFF Tom Coburn and David Vitter, while letting the others form a new splinter caucus (along with their BFF, Joe Lieberman).
It would be fun times!