Page One Kentucky has picked up a pretty wild piece of chatter:
Rumor has it that Jim Bunning is so spitting mad that he’s telling people he’ll just resign and let Steve (Beshear) appoint someone. […]
UPDATE: Spoke with one of Bunning’s staffers and they don’t deny it. WTF. Granted, it only means he probably said it. But was it in frustration or was he serious?
This is probably not going to happen, but Bunning is one crazy sumbitch, so I guess we can let our imaginations run wild. If he actually went through with it, expect Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear to give his Number One, Dan Mongiardo, a quick promotion to DC.
UPDATE: Hilarious:
Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) told a room full of lobbyists this week that he’d resign his Senate seat early if he doesn’t get campaign money from national Republicans, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.
But Bunning insists he’s going to run for reelection and says that the sources are “lying.”
“It’s not true,” Bunning said in a statement. “I intend to fulfill my obligation to the people of Kentucky. If you are going to write something like this, you’d better make your sources known because they are lying.”
It’s very likely that Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn have been working overtime to tighten the purse strings of Bunning’s major fundraising sources, so this story kind of makes sense — Bunning is threatening to pull the rug out from underneath the GOP caucus if donors don’t start opening up their wallets for him. Looks like a few more people are gonna have to take a chomp out of this shit sandwich.
(H/T: sicembears)
After Democrats fucked up five Senate appointments, can we get this hypothetical one right?
If there’s an appointment, I hope Beshear will choose Crit Luallen instead of Mongiardo.
I had to look it up to verify, as I’m not up on my Kentucky politics.
If Bunning really did quit, let’s just hope Beshear’s smart enough not to negotiate with him or anyone else on who he’d name as replacement.
he’s insane, but in a way that’s harmless (if you’re not a republican) and very entertaining.
Hahahahahahahah. Sorry about that. HAHA!
I really do believe he’s crazy and bitter enough to actually pull off such a thing.
well, that would teach them!
it would make sense to appoint mongiardo, but my sense is that Conway and Luellan are stronger more popular candidates and mongiardo might have trouble holding it once he got it.
Mongiardo would be a great national advocate in the senate for health care refor; its why he got involved in politics in the first place.
Jack Conway or Ben Chandler would also both be solid appointments.
I know Mongiardo is his Lt. Governor, but he offered Conway a spot on the ticket first. I am fine with either, not sure who I would prefer, but I am not sure it is a lock he would pick Mongiardo.
was a Dem when I first saw the title, so I was very disappointed at the rumor.
http://www.politico.com/news/s…
I mean, really, could the Democrats ask anyone to inflict more pain to the GOP in the last few weeks than Jim Bunning? Bunning is a nut that has cracked finally. He has always hated Democrats and now he hates the Republicans. This is priceless. Expect the unexpected.
I’m gonna be sad if all of this drama leads to a Republican sitting in this seat come 2011. He may still lose a primary. Hahahaha, now you know what would be a TRIP is if he lost the primary, he just resigned and allowed the seat to be vacant, thus allowing some seniority to help it out. Plus, then the Dem would get that incumbent signification which helps.
Beshear could just appoint whoever was the winner of the Democratic primary, as I assume both are on the same day.
Would that be a best case scenario or would we still rather just face Bunning? I think facing Bunning would be better but ya never know. Incumbency helps. Gives people time to go, meh they’re doing fine, just let em stay.
Mongiardo came close in 2004 because Bunning is terrible. The Beshear/Mongiardo ticket underperformed the polls against a terrible Republican incumbent. Mongiardo has high negatives for a reason. We can do better. Conway or Luallen have much better favorability ratings. It’d be the height of irresponsibility to appoint someone to succeed Bunning early just to lose the seat again in 2010.
No, just kidding. You’d wish.
1. threatens to sue NRCS.
2. threatens to quit, thereby allowing the seat to go Dem.
3. ????
This should be good.
A law school professor of mine, with whom I often discuss politics, remembers when Bunning was a baseball player, and according to him, Bunning was always a wild man. However, at least then, it was a fun kind of crazy. This is just pathetic. Funny, but pathetic.
Im not sure if, in the long run, this would be good or bad for the Democrats. Obviously in the short run it would be as theyd have a Dem Senator. But Bunning looked like he was probably gonna be defeated in 2010 had he run. And Mongiardo (or whoever) would only have a little over a year and a half (at most) to establish themselve as a senator.