We all know Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R. KY) is in for the fight of his life next year against Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes (D. KY). Enter Rand Paul (R) to "save the day":
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
To cover his political flank, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has forged an alliance with tea party darling Rand Paul, picked up support from other national tea party leaders and brought in a campaign manager from the upper echelons of the tea party movement.
The GOP's fiscally conservative wing has proven particularly powerful in Kentucky, and elsewhere it has felled incumbents including McConnell's longtime Republican colleague U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar of Indiana. But McConnell's efforts to make inroads with the tea party movement have clearly paid off, virtually ensuring that no would-be challenger can get the kind of infusion of cash from tea party channels that allowed Paul to win here in 2010.
Paul, who has presidential aspirations and is looking to run in 2016, needs McConnell's connections to the wealthy donor base of the Republican establishment. Meanwhile, McConnell needs Paul's tea party influence to keep potential primary challengers at bay and to energize his general election campaign against the likely Democratic nominee, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. - Huffington Post, 7/7/13
Plus Jesse Benton, who's married to Ron Paul's granddaughter and worked on both Ron and Rand's campaigns is managing McConnell's re-election bid. It's blatant political back scratching, for sure. But I have to give McConnell this, he literally learned quickly that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em:
http://www.startribune.com/...
The McConnell alliance also is a boon for Paul in other ways, such as providing leverage to push his political agenda. McConnell has even signed on to one of Paul's and the tea party's top political priorities, legalizing industrial hemp farming.
McConnell, a skilled political tactician, watched Paul rise from relative obscurity as a Bowling Green eye surgeon to be elected U.S. senator. Paul knocked off McConnell's own hand-picked candidate in the GOP primary and then went on to defeat a strong Democrat in the general election.
McConnell, who had been reluctant even to meet with Paul during the primary, reached out after his primary victory, helping him to raise money from the GOP establishment and offering general election counsel in a state where no one knows the political landscape better.
That won McConnell not only Paul's favor, but his early endorsement for re-election. TheTeaParty.net also endorsed McConnell. The group's founder, Todd Cefaratti, called McConnell "an indispensable ally of conservatives in the Senate." - Star Tribune, 7/7/13
The New York Times wrote about the McConnell/Paul relationship last month and highlighted a few things that are essential to the plot:
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Democratic Senate aides say Mr. McConnell, who declined to be interviewed, is squeezed between Republicans who want to reach across the aisle on substantive policy and the Tea Party troops, including Mr. Paul and Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah. “The combination of their numbers growing in the Senate and McConnell being terrified of his right flank in his own re-election” has blunted his effectiveness as a leader, said Adam Jentleson, a senior aide to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader.
Josh Holmes, Mr. McConnell’s chief of staff, dismissed that analysis as “a Democratic talking point” intended to “drive a wedge between Republicans.”
Several Republican senators deflected questions about the dynamic between Mr. Paul and Mr. McConnell. “I don’t know their relationship, honestly,” Mr. McCain said. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, offered, “One’s a libertarian and one’s a traditional Republican, but they seem to be getting along pretty well.”
In any event, the alliance works both ways. Mr. Paul is determined to vault beyond the libertarian movement he inherited from his father, former Representative Ron Paul. Party insiders say he seeks in Mr. McConnell’s embrace a credibility with establishment Republicans.
“Having a strong relationship with the Republican leader will help him have viability with activists and donors around the country,” said Trey Grayson, Mr. Paul’s 2010 primary challenger, who now directs the Harvard Institute of Politics. “To go to New York and raise money from the Wall Street crowd — those folks will be really comfortable with Chris Christie. But do they think Rand Paul is worth the investment? He wants Mitch McConnell to be his friend.” - New York Times, 6/15/13
So McConnell is the Walter Matthau to Paul's Jack Lemmon. Makes sense considering if it wasn't for McConnell's help, no way Paul would be a Senator:
http://www.rollingstone.com/...
Paul was transformed from insurgent outsider to establishment stooge in the space of almost exactly one year, making a journey that with eerie cinematic precision began and ended in the same place: The Rachel Maddow Show. When he first appeared on the air with the MSNBC leading lady and noted Bible Belt Antichrist to announce his Senate candidacy in May 2009, Paul came out blazing with an inclusive narrative that seemingly offered a realistic alternative for political malcontents on both sides of the aisle. He talked with pride about how his father's anti-war stance attracted young voters (mentioning one Paul supporter in New Hampshire who had "long hair and a lip ring"). Even the choice of Maddow as a forum was clearly intended to signal that his campaign was an anti-establishment, crossover effort. "Bringing our message to those who do not yet align themselves as Republicans is precisely how we grow as a party," Paul said, explaining the choice.
In the early days of his campaign, by virtually all accounts, Paul was the real thing — expansive, willing to talk openly to anyone and everyone, and totally unapologetic about his political views, which ranged from bold and nuanced to flat-out batshit crazy. But he wasn't going to change for anyone: For young Dr. Paul, as for his father, this was more about message than victory; actually winning wasn't even on his radar. "He used to talk about how he'd be lucky if he got 10 percent," recalls Josh Koch, a former campaign volunteer for Paul who has broken with the candidate.
Before he entered the campaign, Paul had an extensive record of loony comments, often made at his father's rallies, which, to put it generously, were a haven for people gifted at the art of mining the Internet for alternate theories of reality. In a faint echo of the racially charged anti-immigrant paranoia that has become a trademark of the Tea Party, both Paul and his father preached about the apocalyptic arrival of a "10-lane colossus" NAFTA superhighway between the U.S. and Mexico, which the elder Paul said would be the width of several football fields and come complete with fiber-optic cable, railroads, and oil and gas pipelines, all with the goal of forging a single American-Mexican state. Young Paul stood with Dad on that one — after all, he had seen Mexico's former president on YouTube talking about the Amero, a proposed North American currency. "I guarantee you," he warned, "it's one of their long-term goals to have one sort of borderless, mass continent." And Paul's anti-interventionist, anti-war stance was so far out, it made MoveOn look like a detachment of the Third Marines. "Our national security," he declared in 2007, "is not threatened by Iran having one nuclear weapon."
With views like these, Paul spent the early days of his campaign looking for publicity anywhere he could get it. One of his early appearances was on the online talk show of noted 9/11 Truth buffoon and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. The two men spent the broadcast exchanging lunatic fantasies about shadowy government forces, with Paul at one point insisting that should Obama's climate bill pass, "we will have an army of armed EPA agents — thousands of them" who would raid private homes to enforce energy-efficiency standards. Paul presented himself as an ally to Jones in the fringe crusade against establishment forces at the top of society, saying the leaders of the two parties "don't believe in anything" and "get pushed around by the New World Order types." - Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone, 9/28/10
I bring all this up because I am pretty convinced that the Tea Party won't be able to get rid of the Turtle Man. Paul knows how to speak to a lot of them and rile them up behind ol' Mitch. Lindsey Graham (R. SC) is more likely to be defeated in his primary. It's going to be Grimes vs. McConnell and we need to get ready for this race. Here's some other things to take in mind before heading into this race:
http://blogs.rollcall.com/...
But while Grimes can run against Congress, present herself as a force for compromise, portray McConnell as yesterday’s news and pick apart his record as she delivers a call for change, the Republican incumbent will not be silent. He will try to make the Kentucky Senate race a referendum on Obama, much as Republican candidates succeeded in doing across the country in 2010, the last midterm balloting.
Midterm dynamics are different from presidential years, when voters have multiple votes — one for president and one for the Senate. In a midterm, a vote in a U.S. Senate or House race is also the only opportunity for a voter to send a message about the president and his performance.
Kentucky was Obama’s seventh-worst state in 2012 (and ninth-worst in 2008). He drew just 38.5 percent of the vote, down 3 points from his 2008 showing. That gives McConnell fertile political soil in which to work.
Grimes surely will want to keep the focus on McConnell, but the Democrat was part of Kentucky’s delegation to the 2012 Democratic National Convention that nominated Obama, and she will be forced to take positions on or answer questions about Obama’s health care law and the president’s position on coal and energy. Given the likelihood that national Democratic and liberal groups will rally behind Grimes, the race is likely to take on larger implications, which actually benefits McConnell. - Roll Call, 7/8/13
The big thing to watch in this race is how far Rand Paul's influence will go. McConnell's alliance with Paul allows him to grab the GOP by the balls. McConnell wants to get re-elected because he could have a really big say in the 2016 Presidential Election. I don't think he would really help Rand Paul become President but the fact that his fundraising capabilities give him that option is enough for McConnell to keep his party in line. The party establishment doesn't want Paul as the 2016 GOP nominee and McConnell is the one that could let Paul off the leash. If you would like to get involved with Grimes' campaign, you can do so here:
http://www.alisonforky.com/