Will Rand Paul Wreck GOP Kentucky Hopes?

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has tried to block Tea Party favorite Rand Paul, son of Ron Paul, from winning the GOP nomination for the state’s other Senate seat. But his efforts appear to be failing.

Has Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell lost his political magic back home in the Bluegrass State?  That’s what some Republicans are wondering in the wake of recent events in the race to succeed Jim Bunning as the commonwealth’s junior Senator.

Last week, credible polling showed McConnell’s preferred candidate for the states other U. S. Senate seat, secretary of state Trey Grayson, trailing Tea Party darling Rand Paul, son of Ron Paul, by 15%.  Then Bunning joined Sarah Palin and Steve Forbes in endorsing Paul, who has refused to say whether he would support McConnell for another term at the helm of Senate Republicans.

The burning question now is whether McConnell will act aggressively for Grayson in the last month before the May 18 primary or cut his potential losses and seek a modus vivendi with Paul and his highly motivated anti-establishment followers.  The smoldering question is how did things reach this point in the backyard of a Senate leader renowned for his keen political instincts and savvy.

Over the last decade and a half, McConnell’s strategic and tactical mastery was indisputably critical in turning Kentucky into a bona fide two-party state.  Democrats still hold a sizable registration advantage, but since 1998 Republicans have held a majority of the state’s House seats and both Senate seats.  McConnell was the maestro of this transformation, both by picking candidates and crafting campaign themes.

He helped Bunning, an embarrassing bumbler on the hustings, win two tough races.  After the second squeaker in 2004, the crusty old Hall of Fame pitcher’s gratitude to McConnell was so great that it moved him to tears.  But by 2009, McConnell, whose top priority is increasing the number of Republicans in the Senate next year, had concluded that Bunning was not the best bet for keeping Kentucky in the GOP column.

Grayson had impressively won reelection as secretary of state in 2007 even as Democrats had recaptured the governorship from embattled Republican Ernie Fletcher.  In fact, that gubernatorial race was the first sign that McConnell might be out-of-step with some in the state GOP.  Believing Fletcher doomed, McConnell was associated behind-the-scenes with former U. S. Rep. Anne Northup’s unsuccessful primary challenge.

All seemed well as McConnell won his own hard-fought reelection in 2008.  But he stirred up hard feelings again by forcing Bunning out, and engineering Grayson’s entry.  Worst of all, McConnell failed to foresee Paul’s rise.

Grayson, who enjoys the endorsement of former Vice President Dick Cheney and calls Palin unqualified for the presidency, has attacked Paul for having strange ideas, primarily about national security.  But this race seems to be all about big government and spending, issues on which Grayson, a former Democrat, simply cannot come close to Paul’s ideological purity.  Grayson needs a breakthrough, which is just the kind of thing McConnell has masterminded in many past campaigns.

With his polling lead, plenty of money, and backing from Glenn Beck and his ilk, Paul is now playing a prevent defense.  He pulled out of a recent debate, apparently because this writer, who had publicly posed some questions to him in a Louisville Courier-Journal column entitled “Who is Rand Paul?” was to be the moderator.  While he has appeared jointly with Grayson since, Paul is walking a fine line between appeasing his movement followers and alienating more mainstream Republicans.

Both Grayson and Paul hold healthy polling leads over the Democratic contenders, attorney general Jack Conway (who co-owns a horse running in the May 1 Kentucky Derby) and lieutenant governor Dan Mongiardo.  It is awfully hard to see any Democrat winning Kentucky while Barack Obama is in the White House.  But a Paul victory in the primary, much less the general election, would be a blow to McConnell in both power and reputation.

So while the Republican leader is busy with things like banking regulation on Capitol Hill, you can bet he is keeping a close eye on things back home.  His top priority is keeping Kentucky’s seat Republican, but he would really prefer it not be Paul, who would ally with South Carolina’s ambitious Jim DeMint against him in the Senate.  He has one month left to prevent that, if he can.