Tuesday, 28 July 2009

Grayson In

It took all of 2 minutes for Grayson to throw his hat into the ring after Bunning decided not to seek re-election. I don't think it comes as a great shock that Bunning is stepping down. He has done little to raise the money he needs and finally faced reality. At the same time it doesn't surprise me that Grayson immediately threw his hat into the ring. It was the reason he formed an exploratory committee in the first place.

At this point, it is obvious (as it was two months ago) that Bunning was clearing the deck for Grayson to win the seat. By staying in the race as long as he did, Bunning allowed Grayson to get a huge head start in fund raising. Grayson is over half of million dollars ahead of his nearest challenger Rand Paul. At the minimum the financial lead establishes Grayson as the front runner. I wouldn't be surprised if his advantage keeps other serious contenders out of the fray. Of course some top candidates may still enter as a way to begin building a base for next year's gubernatorial election, but it would be difficult to catch Grayson. We shall see.

Regardless of who succeeds Bunning on the Republican side, the Democrats are pretty much screwed. Most of their hopes rested on facing a bumbling sitting Senator in the general. Instead they will get a well funded up and coming conservative candidate. One who is much less likely to make the political mistakes that plagued Bunning. One that will most likely have the backing of the McConnell machine.

On top of that the two Democratic candidates have serious flaws heading into this contest. Conway is a well funded liberal. But he is a liberal and will be facing a solid conservative candidate. An election he is unlikely to win in Kentucky. Mongiardo on the other hand has positioned himself as a more moderate Democrat but he is unable to run a coherent campaign. He would most likely be ground to dust by the McConnell machine in the fall.

At this point, I expect Grayson to be the nominee next fall. And unless he self destructs between now and then, I suspect he will be the next junior Senator from Kentucky.

Posted by brians at 9:39 PM in Kentucky Politics

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Bunning Out

The day was Bunning dropped his bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate was inevitable. The fact of the matter is he never seriously raised funs for the race. There was no way he compete with the pittance of money he had raised to this point. While he may have a point that Republican leaders hindered his chances of raising funds recently, they weren't hindering him during the last six years while he as Senator. If he was serious he would have been raising money throughtout the years he was Senator. He didn't do it. I just don't think he had the burning desire to get re-elected to the Senate and finally gave in to the reality of the situation. Plus, I think he cleared the decks for Grayson, but that is another story.

I believe Bunning will be remembered for one thing. He had an uncanny ability to NOT play the political game in D.C. His inability to be a political creature led to his foot in mouth disease that the left routinely castigated him. A disease that nearly saw him lose to Mongiardo six years ago. While it may have lead to some poor quips, it also forged him into a Senator who always followed his core beliefs. He never cared for making a deal or the horse trading that goes on in the legislator. He never cared what the media thought of him. A practice that lead to an openly hostile relationship with the media.

He only cared that he was consistently following the principles that guided him. As such, his clarity and common sense on the issues of the day were amazing. Just in the last few years we saw his precient insight on a number of occasion. For years, he denounced the practices of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. He saw the coming housing bubble and was one of the few senators to try and stop it during the Bush years. He knew the "stimulus" package would not stimulate the economy and voted against it. Turned out he was right both times. Something the senior senator from Kentucky failed to see.

Personally, I want to thank Bunning for his service in the U.S. Senate. I thought he did an outstanding job fighting for conservative causes in the Senate. I wish him well in his future endeavors.