Tag: KY-Sen

After weeks of “not knowing” whether Jim Bunning should run for re-election, and after meeting with a potential primary challenger, NRSC Chair John Cornyn is finally endorsing the embattled Kentucky Senator.

WaPo:

As for that meeting with Williams at the NRSC Friday, NRSC Chairman John Cornyn (Texas) told Capitol Briefing today that it was just “a courtesy visit.”

“Just to clear up any potential confusion, the NRSC supports Sen. Bunning,” Cornyn said, adding that the committee would back Bunning in a contested primary, just as it does as a rule with all of its incumbents.

Cornyn said he was aware of chatter that some Republicans might want Bunning to retire. “My position is that this is Sen. Bunning’s decision to make, and as long as he says he is running I will be supportive of him,” Cornyn said.

I guess he decided that continuing to kneecap the stubborn sumbitch was no longer in the GOP’s best interests. Go figure.

Discussion already underway in JFM110’s diary.

UPDATE: This is too brilliant:

If Republican campaign organizations tried to recruit another candidate to run in Bunning’s stead, “I would have a suit against the (National Republican Senatorial Committee) if they did that,” Bunning told reporters on Tuesday. “In their bylaws, support of the incumbents is the only reason they exist.” […]

“I don’t believe anything Cornyn says… I’ve had miscommunications with John Cornyn from first week of this session,” Bunning said. “The NRSC never helped me last time and they’re probably not going to help me this time.

(Hat-tip: LeftistAddiction)

Uh, why?

From Politico:

A noteworthy development in the Kentucky Senate race: National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman John Cornyn said — for the first time — that the committee will be endorsing Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.), if he runs for re-election.

Cornyn told the Washington Post’s Ben Pershing yesterday that Bunning has the full support of the committee.

“As long as he is running, I will be supportive of him,” Cornyn told the Post.

Full story: http://www.politico.com/blogs/…

The question in my mind is, how much pull does the NRSC have anymore – especially in relation to a whole lot of exasperated Kentuckians? I guess we can only hope and pray that its enough to drag his sorry butt across the finish line in the primary.

Vile:

U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning predicted over the weekend that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would likely be dead from pancreatic cancer within nine months.

During a wide-ranging 30-minute speech on Saturday at the Hardin County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner, Bunning said he supports conservative judges “and that’s going to be in place very shortly because Ruth Bader Ginsburg … has cancer.”

“Bad cancer. The kind that you don’t get better from,” he told a crowd of about 100 at the old State Theater.

It’s pretty easy to see why national Republicans want nothing to do with this mess of a man.

From the right-leaning KYPolitics.org:

A political bombshell this weekend from several well-placed GOP sources, in Frankfort and Washington: State senate President David Williams met with officials at the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) on Friday to discuss his interest in running for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Jim Bunning.  Williams, in town for the National Governor’s Association winter meeting, impressed GOP officials, who called his interest “serious.”

Over at The Hill, Reid Wilson confirms the scoop. The real question for Williams is does he actually want to enter a primary battle against Bunning? He recently supported a tax increase on alcohol and tobacco — something that wouldn’t go over well with the GOP rank-and-file.

This news is pretty extraordinary. It’s hard to think of another recent example of a campaign committee so actively working to dump one of their incumbents — even going so far as to line up a potential primary foe. I’m looking forward to hearing Bunning’s response to this chicanery.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (1/29-2/2, registered voters):

Ben Chandler (D): 42

Jim Bunning (R-inc): 45

Jack Conway (D): 42

Jim Bunning (R-inc): 46

Crit Luallen (D): 41

Jim Bunning (R-inc): 45

Dan Mongiardo (D): 42

Jim Bunning (R-inc): 46

Ben Chandler (D): 42

Trey Grayson (R): 42

Jack Conway (D): 41

Trey Grayson (R): 42

Crit Luallen (D): 42

Trey Grayson (R): 42

Dan Mongiardo (D): 42

Trey Grayson (R): 43

(MoE: ±4%)

R2K polls the Bluegrass State on behalf of the Orangehate Site, and we are looking at a very tight Senate race. Jim Bunning, who has been the subject of some very public pressure from Republican leadership to get out of the way, is leading his likely Democratic opposition by 3 or 4 points. The four likeliest Democratic challengers (Rep. Ben Chandler, Attorney General Jack Conway, Auditor Crit Luallen, and Bunning’s 2004 opponent, Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo; of these four, only Mongiardo has declared) all put up virtually the same numbers, indicating, as with most polls we’ve been seeing in the last few months, that they’re all basically running as “generic D” right now. (Hard to believe, I know, but those creatures known as “voters” apparently aren’t in round-the-clock campaign mode like we are.)

On the one hand, these poll numbers may come as a bit of a surprise to people looking at the Kentucky senate race as one where the Democrats have a clear edge. Bunning has a few advantages here, though: one, the power of incumbency, and the name recognition and general staying-power that come with it. And two: the overall Republican strength in Kentucky, one of the few states that seems to keep on moving away from us at the presidential level, although it’s still quite amenable to statewide Dems.

On the other hand, Bunning clearly is in bad shape here, falling far short of the relative safety of the 50% mark, based on pretty wide name recognition (41 favorable/47 unfavorable), leaving him little room to go up. And that’s before he’s exposed to the rigors of a two-year campaign, which didn’t go so well last time back when he was five younger.

R2K also polls GOP Secretary of State Trey Grayson, a young up-and-comer who would assumedly be the party’s preferred candidate. He doesn’t fare as well as Bunning, but unlike Bunning, he’s not well-known and yet liked by those who know him (39 favorable/18 unfavorable), giving him a lot more room for expansion. This is why Grayson is, by most people, considered the more dangerous GOP option.

The hilarity continues:

A day after Sen. Jim Bunning insisted he would seek a third term, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee said he still wasn’t sure whether the Kentucky Republican would actually run.

“I don’t think he’s made a decision on whether to run,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), head of the NRSC. “We’re working with Sen. Bunning now to provide him all the information he needs in order to make that decision.”

Bunning’s response: “he’s either deaf or he didn’t listen very well.”

This gives me a serious case of the giggles, as I can only imagine that Big John’s “imformation” being shared with the sun-ravaged mummy husk that is Jim Bunning can only be gruesome polling memos and other not-so-subtle suggestions that he pack it in rather than go for another term.

More:

McConnell “had a lapse of memory when he was speaking to the press club last week when he said he didn’t know what my intentions were,” Bunning told Kentucky reporters Tuesday, according to the website Bluegrass Politics. “Whatever Mitch says is whatever he says. He’s the leader of the pack and he can say whatever he wants and get away with it.”

Awwwwwkward.

The time is here. The time is now. Just go. Go. GO! Mitch McConnell doesn’t care how.

For several days now, there has been a drip-drip of (probably well-orchestrated) leaks about how GOP powers, starting at the top with McConnell and NRSC chair John Cornyn, want Jim Bunning to get out of the way to let them run a more vigorous, coherent candidate in the 2010 Kentucky Senate race. This reached a head with Bunning’s unexplained absence last week and then Cornyn’s recent comments, when asked if Bunning or someone else would be the best candidate to run: “I don’t know. I think it’s really up to Senator Bunning.”

Today Bunning fought back against leadership’s “I don’t know” act, in a conference call with Kentucky media. Roll Call reports:

“I had an hourlong meeting with Sen. McConnell in the first week of December in 2008, and we thoroughly discussed my candidacy for the Senate in that hour meeting in my office in Northern Kentucky – and gave him every indication that I was going to run again,” Bunning told reporters on a conference call Tuesday, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. “So he either had a lapse of memory or something when speaking to the Press Club last week when he said that he didn’t know what my intentions were. He knew very well what my intentions were.”

With Bunning only sitting on $175,000 right now, and now seemingly entering into a war of words with the guys charged with saving his butt next year, this race is starting to look pretty promising (as long as Bunning stays in).

Just a teaser from Page One Kentucky:

Sources close to Lt. Governor Daniel Mongiardo tell us that he has informed Governor Steve Beshear that he will announce his campaign for the U.S. Senate tomorrow.

I like Dr. Dan, who lost just 51-49 to Bunning in 2004, despite getting almost no love and outside money. Now we’ll see if this move clears the primary field – and if it pushes Bunning into retirement.

Associated Press:

Democratic Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo believes he would have the upper hand if he decides to run for the Senate seat now held by the Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Bunning.

Mongiardo told The Associated Press on Friday that if he enters the race he expects the 77-year-old Republican to bow out. Bunning eked out a win in 2004 when Mongiardo, then a littleknown state senator from Hazard, ran for the post.

Mongiardo said he believes Bunning would rather not run than to face him again.

Mongiardo said: “I don’t think Sen. Bunning has the fight left in him to run.”

Meanwhile, where is Jim Bunning?

Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning’s absence during the busy first week of the 111th Congress has raised questions about the 77-year-old junior senator’s viability as a candidate for re-election in 2010.

So far this month, Bunning, who sits on the Senate’s Finance, Energy and Natural Resources and Banking committees, missed three cabinet confirmation hearings and a GOP strategy session on President-elect Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package. He’s also missed critical votes on releasing the second portion of the $700 billion federal bailout on the nation’s troubled financial sector – a measure Bunning has staunchly opposed.

Bunning’s congressional staffers attribute his absences to family commitments and declined to discuss where the senator has been for the better part of a month. He did not return a call for comment, but his office issued a statement saying Bunning is ready to take on whomever the Democratic Party fields as a candidate next year.

I like Dr. Dan for this race, and I like seeing a candidate with some fire in his belly. But is he really trying to goad Bunning into retirement? The CW – which I agree with – is that Dems would much rather take on the Hall of Fame pitcher than a generic R replacement. Then again, if Jimbo is pulling a Pajama Pete maneuver (Jammy Jimmy?), Mongiardo may just be embracing the inevitable.

(Hat-tip: P)

No surprises here: Kentucky Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo is seriously considering a rematch against creaky GOP Sen. Jim Bunning:

“I’m considering the race. I think at this stage, being less than two years away, anyone running against an incumbent will have to start the fundraising process.” […]

Now, though he continues to mull a bid, Mongiardo sounds like he wants a second shot at Bunning.

“I got involved in politics out of frustration for where healthcare was headed. And that will largely determine what I do and where I go,” Mongiardo said. “It’s interesting how the stars are lining up right now with [President-elect] Obama and the incoming administration talking about reforming healthcare.”

Mongiardo added he will consider whether he’s done all he can to help improve Kentucky’s healthcare situation, but that his expertise could help his party.

“I think the Democratic Party needs a physician” in the Senate, he said. “We need more people that understand healthcare from the inside to help change it.”

I like Dr. Dan a lot, and if he wants a rematch against Bunning (who insists that he’s running for another term despite his advanced age and notoriously, uh, sloppy campaign style), I’d be happy to let him take it. But fortunately, Mongiardo isn’t the only option we have — both state Auditor Crit Luallan and state Attorney General Jack Conway are also considering the race. Any one of them could give Bunning a serious scare in 2010.

Update: Somewhat amazingly, I neglected to mention Rep. Ben Chandler’s name as a potential candidate. Okay, so we have four strong possibilities here, although I haven’t heard Chandler express his interest lately.