And thus endith the hilarity:
Embattled U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning has announced that he will not seek re-election to a third term in 2010.
His decision ends months of speculation that he would drop out of the Senate race because of his inability to raise money, poor poll numbers and lack of support from top Republican officials.
Despite accepting contributions to his campaign since 2005, Bunning had less than $600,000 in the bank at the end of the second quarter, which ended in June.
Bunning has said that U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told him in December that he was too old to be re-elected.
It takes a weak, weak candidate to make Kentucky a certain lock for the Democrats, and Bunning was that candidate - polls showed him losing to virtually every Democrat possible. But instead of focusing on the hit to our pickup chances, let's remember the good times: the things that made Bunning such a delight.
Bunning compares his 2004 Senate competition to one of Saddam Hussein's sons:
Republican Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky, speaking of Dr. Daniel Mongiardo, a dark-haired, dark-skinned second-generation Italian-American running against him this fall:
"I have to tell you he looks like one of Saddam Hussein's sons... I mean before they were dead, of course...I really mean that he looks like one of Saddam's sons, and he even dresses like them, too."
Bunning made the remarks at a Lincoln-Reagan dinner (Abraham Lincoln couldn't be reached for comment either on pairing his name with Reagan's or on Bunning's Know-Nothing comments). After word leaked out, Bunning's campaign denied that he'd said any such thing.
But then it emerged that the event had been videotaped, and Mongiardo's people started to demand that the Bunning folks release the tape.
http://www.samefacts.com/...
Bunning says Justice Ginsburg will die within months:
Over the weekend, Kentucky Republican Sen. Jim Bunning predicted that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg likely would be dead from pancreatic cancer in nine months. "Bad cancer. The kind you don't get better from," Bunning said Saturday during a speech covered by our Gannett colleagues at the Louisville Courier-Journal. "Even though she was operated on, usually, nine months is the longest that anybody would live," he said.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/...
Bunning complains over and over that the GOP is out to get him:
A public rift between Kentucky's two Republican U.S. Senators surfaced Tuesday as U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning groused to reporters that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell hasn't publicly backed Bunning's 2010 re-election bid.
Bunning said McConnell must have suffered "a lapse of memory" last week when he told reporters at the National Press Club in Washington that he didn't know whether Bunning planned to seek re-election. Bunning, who is widely considered the nation's most politically vulnerable GOP senator, said he told McConnell of his re-election intentions in early December.
"McConnell is leading the ship, but he is leading it in the wrong direction," Bunning said.
The Courier Journal reports Bunning also called McConnell a "control freak," and said that an endorsement from the senator would hurt his own chances of re-election in 2010.
"If Mitch McConnell doesn't endorse me, it could be the best thing that ever happened to me in Kentucky," Bunning said.
http://www.kentucky.com/...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
He even threatened to sue the party if they ran someone against him!
Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning on Tuesday said he would have grounds for a lawsuit against his party's national campaign arm if backed a GOP challenger to him in the 2010 primary.
Bunning made the comments during his weekly media call a day after Republican Kentucky state Senate President David Williams said he would not rule out a possible run in the primary. The discussion also came a day after he apologized for comments made about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's fight with cancer.
In his call, Bunning said that if the National Republican Senatorial Committee backed a Republican challenger in the primary, he would have grounds for a lawsuit.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Now, I don't actually think that this seat is a lost cause for the Democrats. Having a Lt. Gov or an Attorney General running in a state like this is a big coup, and Democrats have got both in the primaries (the Lt. Gov being the aforementioned guy who looks like Saddam - he's looking for a rematch).
But without Bunning, the race is sure to be incredibly difficult. Trey Grayson is doing alright in fundraising, although not as good as AG Jack Conway. I suppose much of it depends on how much the DSCC wants to spend on this race in comparison with, say, defending Dodd's seat.
At least there's a bright point: Ron Paul's son, Rand Paul (seriously), has made motions toward running for the nomination if Bunning drops out. If he goes through with it, there'll be high tension primaries on both sides - making this an unlikely but interesting battleground to watch.