Tea Party challenger Matt Bevin's (R. KY) off to a pretty good start challenging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R. KY) for the GOP nominee:
http://www.courier-journal.com/...
Bevin passed his first big test in his initial announcement in the state Capitol rotunda Wednesday. He communicated effectively, made a case for himself and against McConnell, had a dozen good applause lines and sound bites, dealt with reporters’ questions well, and looked nothing like the political newcomer that he is. He is an attractive candidate with money, and so far that equals credibility.
We don’t know how much of his own money Bevin can put into his campaign, beyond the initial round of TV ads he’s running, but it’s safe to assume that he will attract contributions from tea party supporters all over the country, because this race will be the closest thing to a national election in 2014. He will probably raise more money from non-Kentuckians than from people inside the state, particularly if he wins endorsements from the Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund, which said last week they were open to supporting him. He cast his campaign as the start of “an American renaissance” that will sweep the country: “We the people have come to take our nation back.”
Now McConnell’s main mission will be to keep Bevin from expanding his support beyond the hard-core, uncompromising tea party base — a faction to which McConnell has been reaching out ever since it drove Rand Paul to victory in the 2010 Senate primary over McConnell’s chosen candidate, then-Secretary of State Trey Grayson. He hired Paul’s campaign manager and nephew, Jesse Benton, to run his campaign and secured endorsements from Paul and some local and national tea party leaders, but Wednesday Bevin was introduced by Jenean Hampton, chair of the tea party group in Paul’s hometown, Bowling Green.
“For the first time in almost 30 years we have a real horse race in the commonwealth of Kentucky,” Hampton said. She apparently meant intra-party competition for McConnell, who has never been seriously challenged in a primary. Now, for the first time, GOP primary voters have a credible alternative. - Louisville Courier-Journal, 7/27/13
And Bevin received some more good news this week:
http://wfpl.org/...
A national political action committee is backing Louisville businessman Matt Bevin over Senator Mitch McConnell in next year's Republican primary election, saying the incumbent has refused to use his leadership position to fight for conservatives.
Based in Washington, D.C., the Madison Project describes itself as a PAC that supports small-government and anti-abortion candidates across the country.
The group previously supported Missouri Republican Jim Talent during his successful 2002 senate bid, and raised close to $2 million for political candidates in last year's elections.
Bevin has already been endorsed by The United Kentucky Tea Party, a coalition of 14 different groups across the state. But this is a sign that Bevin is also getting national attention from organization's outside of the state. - WFPL News 89.3, 7/29/13
And looking at Bevin's history, he's the real deal in terms of Tea Party credibility:
http://www.nationalreview.com/...
“I have a Peroutka for President T-shirt from 2004 in my drawer,” Bevin tells National Review Online in an interview at his Louisville home. He’s referring to Constitution-party candidate Michael Peroutka, for whom he cast his ballot in the general election rather than George W. Bush. “In ’04, I was just so fed up with the choices that we were given,” he says.
During the 2008 election, Bevin recalls, his brother sent him some memorable campaign gear. It was “one of the funniest T-shirts I’ve ever had,” he said: It bore the slogan, “We’re Screwed ’08.”
“This was when we had McCain and Obama as the choice,” he says. “We were going to get basically a socialist moderate-type person either way.” He didn’t see a third-party candidate that he liked as a “good viable alternative,” though. “I held my nose,” he says, and cast a ballot for McCain.
Nor is Bevin much pleased with today’s congressional Republicans. “Of 535 members of Congress, I would bet there are two dozen truly conservative people,” he estimates. “We are not being well lead in either the House or the Senate in the Republican party.” He does admire Senator Rand Paul (who has endorsed McConnell), and Senator Mike Lee of Utah, and, perhaps most of all, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. “I love Ted Cruz,” he enthuses. Indeed, “someone like a Ted Cruz” would be his dream pick for a Republican Senate leader to replace McConnell. “I think he could handle it. It would be refreshing.” - National Review Online, 7/29/13
So he's the real thing. It's still unclear if Bevin can beat McConnell but he's guaranteed to give the Senate Minority Leader a serious headache:
http://www.courier-journal.com/...
Instead of trying to define Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) before she gets very far, McConnell now must shift a considerable part of his focus into dealing with a party insurgency that could leave him battered and bruised for the general election, assuming he is not dethroned.
McConnell has wasted no time throttling “Bailout Bevin,” as an ad calls him, questioning aid that Bevin’s Connecticut bell-making company received.
And Bevin has shown he has given his rollout some thought, returning fire instantly with his own ad attacking McConnell for “failed leadership” and essentially betraying conservative principles on spending and other issues.
Even Democrats are betting for now that McConnell will prevail in the primary. But the cost could be high: a divided, angry and bitter Republican base. Already the tea party groups are lining up behind Bevin, while McConnell’s Benton lambasts the challenger as “merely an East Coast con man.” - Louisville Courier-Journal, 7/28/13
But Bevin isn't just a thorn in McConnell's side. He's also putting Tea Party Senator Rand Paul (R. KY) in quite a pickle:
http://www.usatoday.com/...
The Republican primary between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Louisville, Ky., businessman Matt Bevin has put Kentucky's Sen. Rand Paul in a tough spot.
Paul maintained support for McConnell after the campaign kickoff this week of Bevin, who has the backing of many tea party organizations.
"Mitch McConnell is a proven conservative who stands strong for Kentucky in the face of President Obama's big government agenda in Washington," Paul said in a statement. "He is a consistent voice against Obamacare and against this administration's war on coal. He has stood up for Kentucky values."
The Paul-McConnell alliance doesn't sit well with many in Paul's tea party base because they see Paul's endorsement of McConnell as turning his back on the anti-establishment principles on which his campaign was based. - USA Today, 7/29/13
More below the fold.
Indeed, Paul's relationship causes Tea Party voters to take a closer look at his sincerity towards the Tea Party movement:
http://www.courier-journal.com/...
“I think Rand is between a rock and a hard place,” said John Kemper, a Lexington-area tea party activist and former candidate for Kentucky auditor. “Rand has been running for president. He needs McConnell’s donor list and McConnell’s help.”
Kemper said many in the tea party want to see elected officials take more stands against powerful elected officials, even if it means alienating sources for campaign funds.
He cited U.S. Rep Thomas Massie’s vote against re-electing John Boehner Speaker of the House, which may have cost him fundraising money but gained him respect among the tea party.
“Massie lost hundreds of thousands of dollars when he voted against Boehner,” Kemper said. “That vote won’t be forgotten by him or by us.” - Louisville Courier-Journal, 7/29/13
But some people argue that Paul will be just fine if he refrains from attacking Bevin:
http://cincinnati.com/...
“I would have thought Rand Paul would be more open to a primary because of all the headwinds he faced when he ran,” said Garth Kuhnhein, a Fort Mitchell resident and former president of the Northern Kentucky Tea Party. “There are a lot of people wishing some people in power would stay out of the primaries.”
Some have said Paul might mitigate the damage by keeping his comments on the Senate race to a minimum.
People can forgive Paul his endorsement as long as he doesn’t attack Bevin, said Scott Hofstra, spokesman for the United Kentucky Tea Parties, a coalition of 14 tea party organizations. UKTP has endorsed Bevin.
“His endorsement helps McConnell out,” Hofstra said. “What his reasoning is, I don’t know, but as long as Rand doesn’t come out and actively attack Matt, I don’t think it will make a difference with our folks. Should he attack Matt, it could hurt Rand.” - Cincinatti.com, 7/28/13
Paul's really in a tough spot here. Without McConnell and his connections, no way in Hell would Paul be in the Senate and if he is serious about running for President, he's going to need McConnell's help. But he's risking his credibility by backing a guy who's voted for the Patriot Act, FISA, the NSA and bank bailouts. Paul has to choose between his loyalty to McConnell or loyalty to the Tea Party movement. Yes, he's endorsed McConnell but he's not against Bevin's candidacy:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
When McConnell's office attacked Bevin as an "East Coast con man," Paul didn't rush to McConnell's side in support. He simply explained that Bevin is a "good family man [who] does mission work" and left it at that. Even though the Kentucky senators have developed a political alliance of sorts over the past two years, Paul will never forget that he got elected only after defeating McConnell's hand-picked primary candidate Trey Grayson. So, while antagonism is off the table, it's unlikely Paul will bring out the big guns for McConnell's reelection. And, in a state-based campaign that relies heavily on relationships with local politicians, sometimes neutrality says more than anything else can. - Huffington Post, 7/29/13
We don't know yet how competitive Bevin will make things for McConnell but if McConnell is suffering in his primary, it will be the ultimate test of Paul's loyalty. Sure, if McConnell loses Paul would then become the Senior Senator from Kentucky but Paul's eyes are set on the White House. But there's only so much Tea Party voters can tolerate when it comes to how Paul works with establishment types like McConnell so we shall see. And McConnell's upcoming actions could look bad for Paul:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/...
Though several Republicans have been threatening a big showdown over the debt limit and government funding with President Obama this fall, it's possible that maybe we won't approach total fiscal calamity this time. In an interview with The National Review's Robert Costa, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell sounds tough, but outlines what could be the outlines of a deal. And top Obama aides have been meeting with eight Senate Republicans to figure out a compromise on these issues, The Wall Street Journal's Peter Nicholas and Kristina Peterson report. But there probably won't be a longer-term "grand bargain."
And McConnell, who is up for reelection in 2014 and facing a conservative challenger in the Republican primary, says lots of aggressive-sounding things that might play well with conservative voters. He even makes a gay joke about Sens. John McCain and Chuck Schumer, who worked together on immigration: "You know, I was kidding [New York Democrat Chuck Schumer] and McCain the other day, and asked, 'When are you all getting married? It's getting almost embarrassing.'"
McConnell warns Democrats, "The tax issue is over." But he suggests Republicans are open to preventing a second year of the sequester. "You want sequester relief? Then let’s talk about a reduction in entitlement spending," he says. "I think a place to talk is on things like chained CPI." Obama has already said he'd support chained CPI, which is a less generous way of calculating the cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security benefits. McConnell also floats raising the age of eligibility for Medicare, which Democrats do not like. McConnell says, "In return for that, we could trade less spending reduction on the discretionary side, because we all know the biggest challenge is actually not on the discretionary side, but on entitlements. To me, that’s a better place to go in the fall than signaling that you’re open to raising taxes." - The Atlantic, 7/29/13
But inside sources indicate that Senate Democrats aren't going to take up McConnell's deal:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
But the initial reaction from senior Democratic Senate aides was basically a scoff, noting that the offer was a far cry from where negotiations between the president and Republicans stood during the last round of budget discussions.
“Our caucus would not accept entitlement cuts to replace the sequester -– that’s just replacing crappy cuts with crappy cuts,” said one top aide, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss budget deliberations. “Our position in the last round of negotiations was we’d do chained CPI for $1 trillion in additional revenues and getting rid of the sequester for 2 years, on the assumption that at that point it’d never really go into effect.”
Another aide said that accepting the deal would be bad politics for Democrats, arguing that Republicans would just come back afterward and push for additional cuts to discretionary spending. Sequestration would be gone but the Republican zeal for deficit reduction wouldn’t. - Huffington Post. 7/30/13
But the beauty of the whole McConnell/Bevin feud is it's causing the a riff in the Tea Party movement:
http://guardianlv.com/...
The United Kentucky Tea Party sent a letter to the national organization condemning their endorsement of McConnell. They list his “willingness to roll over and cede power to President Obama and the liberals in Washington” and blast him for everything from voting for debt ceiling increases under President George W. Bush to cutting a deal with Vice President Biden to avoid the “fiscal cliff” earlier this year.
Polls show that Rand Paul leading all other Republican candidates in polls as the choice for the Presidency in 2016. He has 16 percent favorability. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and last year’s GOP vice presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, came in second with 13 percent support each. Texas senator Ted Cruz, like Paul, a tea party favorite, rolled in with 12 percent, while Florida Sen. Marco Rubio had 10 percent. It should be noted that none were in double figures.
Paul, who has placed himself in the public eye through various tactics, has a serious detriment to his nomination ambitions. Of all possible candidates, he would fare worst against a Hillary Clinton candidacy. She leads him by eight percentage points.
2014 will find Kentucky’s choices of great interest locally and nationally. Rand Paul’s future may lie on the coattails of Mitch McConnell. Matt Bevin may offer a serious challenge to the fading popularity of McConnell. And, if the voter’s in a red state should choose Alison Lundergan Grimes as their senator, what would that say about an ever-changing American landscape? - Guardian Express, 7/28/13
Grimes is certainly the only one to make huge gains from a brutal primary between McConnell and Bevin and McConnell's failure as his party's leader. By the way, Grimes officially kicked off her campaign today:
http://www.wdrb.com/...
On Tuesday night, Grimes plans to officially kick off her campaign for US Senate. Governor Steve Beshear will join Grimes at the Lexington event in a show of support.Grimes is seeking Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's seat.
Both Grimes and McConnell have agreed to appear at Kentucky's premier political event, the Fancy Farm picnic on Saturday. - WDRB, 7/30/13
The event takes place in Lexington. You can click here to sign up for Grimes' campaign:
http://alisonforkentucky.com/
And if you want to donate, you can click here:
https://secure.actblue.com/...