Rand Paul Gets An Early Win

The Kentucky Senate race has been called for Rand Paul, and the question is whether Conway overplayed his hand when he attacked Paul for his religious beliefs.

Keeping in mind that the Rand Paul owes some of his success to Jim DeMint's early support for his campaign, its worthwhile to see what the new king-maker in the he Senate has to say. "We’re beginning the process of rediscovering the Republican Party." & The Hill reports him saying: "I look forward to welcoming Senator-elect Paul to our nation’s capital as we fight to restore much-needed accountability in Washington."

So the question now: who else will be joining the DeMint-Paul caucus?

Posted at 8:24 by Noah Kristula-Green

CNN has already called the Kentucky Senate race for Rand Paul. This is not surprising. Polls showed that the Conway’s “Aqua Buddha” ad backfired. When I spoke to analysts in Kentucky yesterday, they said that the race was tied as long as Conway focused on Rand’s statements about medicare deductibles but that the personal attack on Rand Paul was seen as too far.

However, we will still want to watch the returns to see how well Conway did in Lexington and Louisville, the Democratic and urban strongholds.

Steve Voss, a Political Scientist who studies voting patterns at the University of Kentucky was contacted by FrumForum to get an immediate take on the result. He assumed that CNN was able to call it for Paul based on the exits polls in the eastern and more conservative part of the state where the coal industry is located. However, its still very early in the night, and the county-by-county results are still trickling in.

The post-mortem on the race will undoubtedly have to focus on how much Conway overplayed his hand with the Aqua Buddha campaign. For those keeping track of extremists on both sides of the political spectrum, this was the same ad that Daily Kos called “legitimate”. Republicans across the country all wish they were lucky enough to have their opponents buy into the Daily Kos view of the world!

Posted at 7:53 by Noah Kristula-Green