The Republican Party leadership seems determined to squeeze Bunning into retirement and are adopting a new strategy in pursuit of their goal by starving him of campign donations and assistance. As noted in the Politico story:
That means little fundraising help from top Republicans in Washington, little to no engagement with the National Republican Senatorial Committee and a cold shoulder from Kentucky political strategists.
[skip]
Behind the scenes, Republicans in Washington and Kentucky are beginning to shut out Bunning, with no plans to give him the usual access to an extensive network of personnel, e-mail lists and contact information to reach out to potential supporters in his state.
http://www.politico.com/news/s…
The initial effort to persuade Bunning to retire failed miserably for Republicans. Bunning even went so as to threaten to resign, allowing the Democratic governor to select a successor, and also threatened to sue the NRSC if they supported a challenger. Needless to say, these actions did not endear Bunning to the Republican leadership, but they do seem to have succeeded in getting them to at least be more subtle in their efforts.
The article really shows how desparate McConnell and Cornyn are to force Bunning out. Obviously, these guys interact with him every day. So, the fact that they are so desparate to rid themselves of him suggests that Bunning is even more likely to implode while campaigning than even we might have believed. If the GOP leadership is this desparate to get rid of Bunning, then we really need him to be the Republican nominee. Besides donating to Bunning within the next few months, is there anything we can do to show Senator Bunning our “support”?
Loading ...
by publicly threatening again that he will resign and let Beshear appoint a Democrat to replace him if the Repub establishment plays this game.
“If you’re going to try to take down big game, do it with your first shot.” In this case, Bunning is “big game,” in that he has power as an incumbent Senator, and he’s just crazy enough to go WAY off the reservation if this type of fight continues long enough.
I think KY-Sen could easily be the most interesting race to just sit back, and watch with a big bucket of popcorn. lol Win or lose. Every cycle needs one, last year it was NY-13. haha Although, I doubt anything could be more fun than that race was!
so maybe she’ll come back and campaign for him. . .