Tea partiers think this is a photo of McConnell plotting a socialist revolution with Comrade Obamalinsky
The Senate Conservatives Fund, a conservative political action committee founded by Heritage CEO Jim DeMint when he was in the U.S. Senate, has endorsed Kentucky businessman Matt Bevin, who is running a tea party challenge against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in the Kentucky GOP Senate primary next May.
Louisville Courier-Journal:
"We have interviewed a lot of candidates this year and Matt Bevin is one of the very best. He's principled, passionate, and has Ted Cruz-like courage,” said Matt Hoskins, the group’s executive director, referring to Cruz, the U.S. senator from Texas, who led the fight to shut down government in an effort to defund the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
So, if Kentucky Republicans are looking for the second coming of Ted Cruz, SCF says Matt Bevin is their man. And it appears as though he'll make his case with Sarah Palin
on his side (emphasis added):
After the Republican New Jersey Senate candidate she supported lost Wednesday night, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin suggested that Kentucky might be her next project. [...]
"We're going to shake things up in 2014," Palin wrote. "Rest well tonight, for soon we must focus on important House and Senate races. Let's start with Kentucky —which happens to be awfully close to South Carolina, Tennessee, and Mississippi — from sea to shining sea we will not give up. We've only just begun to fight."
Palin didn't specifically mention Bevin, but it's clear from the context that she was talking about endorsing him. As far primaries are concerned, Palin's 2012 track record was decent—she made five endorsements in contested Senate primaries and her preferred candidate
won in four of those cases, though she also endorsed Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign, and we all know how that turned out.
Bevin has yet to show any major fundraising or polling success, but he has been willing to put at least some of his money into the campaign—he's loaned more than a half-million dollars so far to his effort. Still, there's six months to go before the primary, and primaries tend to not take shape until the last few weeks of the campaign, so even though Mitch McConnell claims he's focused on Democratic candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes (who leads McConnell in the latest polling) it's clear he's still got a primary race ahead of him.