Bluegrass Republicans Breathing Easier

Derby revels done, Kentucky Republicans turn from the Sport of Kings to that of Senators. Their odds improved considerably last week in the political horserace to hold the U. S. Senate seat now occupied by Jim Bunning, 77, when secretary of state Trey Grayson, 36, formed an exploratory committee. He did so with Bunning’s blessing, so the betting is that the two-term incumbent will soon announce retirement.

The brainy Grayson hails from the same GOP stronghold in northern Kentucky as Bunning and is in his second successful term in statewide office. He is a centrist conservative with proven bipartisan ballot appeal. In 2007, Grayson won reelection even as a Democrat swept into the governorship by a big margin in this state that is blue by registration but regularly votes red in federal elections.

Grayson disclaims any intention of mounting a primary challenge against the crusty, gaffe-prone Bunning, who is belatedly bowing to the reality that his low approval ratings (34%) and admittedly “lousy” fundraising (only $375,000 cash on hand) portend defeat if he remains in next year’s race. Yet Bunning is erratic, irascible, and may harbor ill will toward Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

Although he masterminded Bunning’s narrow victories in 1998 and 2004, McConnell recognized months ago that it would take a fresh face to prevent his home state from reducing his already beleaguered Republican minority in the Senate by yet another increasingly filibuster-critical seat. He has since worked behind the scenes with characteristic calculation and cunning to depose the proud Bunning without creating an intra-party schism the state GOP can ill afford.

Democrats are staging what promises to be a brutal and divisive primary between mediocre Lieutenant Governor Dan Mongiardo, 48, who almost beat Bunning last time and is tepidly backed by Governor Steve Beshear, and Attorney General Jack Conway, 39, a pretty-faced policy cipher preferred by the plaintiffs’ bar and most other party bigwigs. The winner of this contest between rural doctor Mongiardo and big city lawyer Conway will have the burden of running on President Obama’s liberal record in the socially conservative, gun-loving, and pro-military commonwealth.

In the meantime, many mainstream Kentucky Republicans gaze admiringly across the Ohio River into Indiana and wonder why that state’s competent, popular, and extremely successful governor, Mitch Daniels, is not considered as a candidate for national leadership of a party so desperately in need of it. Perhaps the upcoming Indianapolis 500 will focus some much-deserved attention on the Hoosiers’ own formidable Mitch.