Looks like the elephants are worried about a rogue.
Senior Republicans in Kentucky and Washington D.C. are deeply concerned about Senate candidate Trey Grayson’s campaign as he struggles to narrow the gap against GOP primary rival Rand Paul.
Two months before the election, the libertarian-leaning Paul, son of the Texas congressman and quixotic presidential contender, has tapped into anti-Washington grass-roots fervor on the right and staked out an advantage over Grayson, Kentucky’s secretary of state and establishment favorite.
There have been few polls in the race, but an automated survey earlier this month showed Paul leading by double digits. Even Grayson backers acknowledge that their candidate is lagging, if not as badly as the public polls indicate.
A win by Paul, a Bowling Green ophthalmologist, would represent the first true electoral success of the tea party movement. Equally important, it would embarrass Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose political organization is running Grayson’s campaign, thrust onto the national stage a Republican with foreign policy views out of the conservative mainstream and, strategists in both parties believe, imperil the GOP’s hold on the seat now held by retiring Sen. Jim Bunning.
Recognizing the threat, a well-connected former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney convened a conference call last week between Grayson and a group of leading national security conservatives to sound the alarm about Paul.
“On foreign policy, [global war on terror], Gitmo, Afghanistan, Rand Paul is NOT one of us,” Cesar Conda wrote in an e-mail to figures such as Liz Cheney, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Dan Senor and Marc Thiessen.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34582.html#ixzz0iVNg9zCI
Neither Rand or his daddy Ron, are my political cup of tea, but anything that gets Mitch McConnell and the Cheney clan collective panties in a wad is a good thing in my book.
Senior Republicans in Kentucky and Washington D.C. are deeply concerned about Senate candidate Trey Grayson’s campaign as he struggles to narrow the gap against GOP primary rival Rand Paul.
Two months before the election, the libertarian-leaning Paul, son of the Texas congressman and quixotic presidential contender, has tapped into anti-Washington grass-roots fervor on the right and staked out an advantage over Grayson, Kentucky’s secretary of state and establishment favorite.
There have been few polls in the race, but an automated survey earlier this month showed Paul leading by double digits. Even Grayson backers acknowledge that their candidate is lagging, if not as badly as the public polls indicate.
A win by Paul, a Bowling Green ophthalmologist, would represent the first true electoral success of the tea party movement. Equally important, it would embarrass Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose political organization is running Grayson’s campaign, thrust onto the national stage a Republican with foreign policy views out of the conservative mainstream and, strategists in both parties believe, imperil the GOP’s hold on the seat now held by retiring Sen. Jim Bunning.
Recognizing the threat, a well-connected former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney convened a conference call last week between Grayson and a group of leading national security conservatives to sound the alarm about Paul.
“On foreign policy, [global war on terror], Gitmo, Afghanistan, Rand Paul is NOT one of us,” Cesar Conda wrote in an e-mail to figures such as Liz Cheney, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Dan Senor and Marc Thiessen.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34582.html#ixzz0iVNg9zCI
Neither Rand or his daddy Ron, are my political cup of tea, but anything that gets Mitch McConnell and the Cheney clan collective panties in a wad is a good thing in my book.