Posted on 08/08/2013 3:40:55 PM PDT by cotton1706
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell's re-election campaign manager said in a taped telephone conversation earlier this year he was "sorta holding my nose" while doing the job, a less-than-flattering remark about a powerful GOP establishment figure struggling to shore up support among tea party voters back home in Kentucky.
In a brief telephone interview Thursday, Jesse Benton did not dispute the authenticity of the taping. "I'm not 100 percent positive. I'm not confirming that, but I'm not denying it either," he said.
In a separate statement emailed to reporters, he said, "It is truly sick that someone would record a private phone conversation I had out of kindness and use it to try to hurt me. I believe in Sen. McConnell and am 100 percent committed to his re-election."
Benton has deep ties to the tea party wing of the Republican party nationally as well as in Kentucky. He managed Rep. Rand Paul's successful run for the Senate from Kentucky in 2010, a race in which McConnell backed a different contender in the party primary before endorsing the eventual winner in the fall campaign.
Benton also worked for Sen. Paul's father, former Rep. Ron Paul, in his unsuccessful 2008 and 2012 campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination.
McConnell tapped Benton to manage his own re-election campaign for 2014 in a political marriage of convenience of sorts meant to shore up his own support with tea party activists.
Even so, in recent weeks, McConnell has drawn a primary challenger, Matt Bevin, who says he is the real conservative in the race.
Secretary of State Allison Lundergan Grimes is seeking the Democratic nomination.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Does this not show how dumb McConnell is? Especially if he keeps the man on the job!
Uh, hey b0z0, whachya doin' 'bout the NSA and their data sharing?
Not only that. McConnell’s office was bugged before. It was either a sham or they didn’t do anything about it.
This is shaping up to be a trainwreck. Thank heaven the people of Kentucky have a conservative alternative instead of a democrat making the most of this!
This RINO is in trouble. Funny, a month ago his reelection seemed a sure thing. Go Matt Bevin!
I heard *another* one of his puke filled sleazy hit jobs on Bevin today. Scorched earth.
Yet Mitch (Harry’s Bitch) can’t seem to mention any of his principled stands in these attack jobs.
Maybe Mitch could learn to fight like a man if someone told him Harry Reid was a Republican. Or Obozo a conservative. Then he’d steamroll them.
McConnell will not be the next senator from KY. If he destroys Bevin he will get shut down in the general. There are too many of us TEA Party conservatives here that will not repeat our “Lesser of two evils” vote from 2008. We are NOT voting for McConnell in the general election. Screw him and the GOP-e. He and they are nothing more than lying Vichy-esque traitors and collaborators.
I have had it with the Republicans that blame conservatives for GOP failures. We have voted for their RINO lessor of 2 evils candidates for decades and they have done nothing but sell us like chattel to the fascist Democrats.
If I were McConnell, I’d fire the guy on the spot. If I were a Kentucky voter, I’d fire McConnell.
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