Posted on 05/17/2010 12:09:23 PM PDT by FTJM
When voters go to the polls Tuesday for U.S. Senate primary elections in Kentucky and Pennsylvania, they'll write a new act in the ongoing shake-up of the Republican political establishment that's being led by conservative freshman Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina.
In Kentucky, GOP voters will choose between Trey Grayson - the handpicked choice of the state's most powerful Republican, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell - and DeMint-backed Rand Paul, son of Texas Rep. Ron Paul.
In Pennsylvania, Democrats will select Rep. Joe Sestak or incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter, who bolted the Republican Party last year after DeMint became the first Republican senator to endorse Specter's opponent, former Rep. Pat Toomey, in the GOP primary.
DeMint's impact - through endorsements and money from his Senate Conservatives Fund - has also been felt in recent weeks in Florida, Indiana and Utah, and it will reverberate throughout the summer in California, Colorado and beyond.
Around the country, DeMint is backing conservative underdog challengers who are running against more moderate Republican establishment candidates such as Carly Fiorina in California and Jane Norton in Colorado.
"This has not gone over real well with my colleagues," DeMint told conservative activists who were gathered last month at a retreat in Santa Barbara, Calif.
DeMint's intrusion into McConnell's home state with his endorsement of Paul on May 5, a day after McConnell backed Grayson, raised eyebrows in Republican congressional offices on Capitol Hill.
The move sparked published and online reports that DeMint wants McConnell's job as the top Senate Republican, compelling DeMint to reject the reports out of hand.
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
A lot of purists pile on DeMint for backing Mitt Romney in 2008. But at the time, there was no credible alternative to McCain, so I still think he did the right thing. Noteworthy is that he sure ain’t backing the least worst RINO for 2012 now!
The purists were purists before they weren’t.
Yep, this is what I was talking about. The battle of conservatives over RINOs.
Nothing conservative or patriotic about anti-military liebertarian Rand Paul, fellow traveler of traitor Adam Kokesh.
If he’s like his father, and all indications are that he is, he will the most fiscally conservative senator.
And his “entangling alliances with none” foreign policy is not anti-military. I disagree with it but right now we need to focus and reducing spending, government reach and taxes. Paul is orders of magnitude better than Democrat-lite Greyson.
I wish some so-called true conservatives would grow a brain and realize that the liebertarian “fiscal conservatism” applies mainly to cutting our defense budget, in line with their overall isolationism. If DeMint agrees with that, then he is one of them.
Don’t count on it. I’m a capital R Republican and small l libertarian, and if it were up to me I’d increase defense spending as much as absolutely possible. I’m a small l libertarian in that I don’t want government to micromanage the behavior of it’s citizens.
I've spoken to both Jane Norton and Ken Buck (the DeMint endorsee); and I'm not terribly impressed with either. I gave Buck an "F" on his answer to one of my 10th Amendment questions; and Norton got an "Incomplete", since she didn't seem to understand the question.
Based on what I've seen, I'm not sure Buck is conservative or an underdog—certainly not enough of either to be attracting national attention.
This is the danger we face when national heavyweights throw their weight around endorsing people they really know nothing about.
I like DeMint and I'm thrilled that he is backing Dr. Rand Paul. But this article gets it wrong. Rand has been on top for for well over a year now. I don't see how you could describe him as an "underdog".
(quote)
Paul says invading Iraq was the wrong thing to do, and while he supported the attack on Afghanistan, he expresses reservations about President Obama’s mission for U.S. forces there and speaks about the need to scale back overseas commitments.
Grayson, meanwhile, defends the Iraq invasion and argues for a long-term commitment to Afghanistan as part of “keeping America on the offensive” in the war on terrorism.
Grayson hammered Paul on the difference with some nasty ads, suggesting that Paul had blamed America for the Sept. 11 attacks because he had argued that previous American policies had helped galvanize Islamists.
(end quote)
DeMint needs to show some more backbone and support JD Hayworth over McCain. He has been neutral in the campaign...now he can take effective GOP leadership and support Hayworth.
Not only it will help Hayworth, it would make DeMint the most powerful GOP Senator
Jim DeMint 2012!~
Senator Jim DeMint: “Senator Bob Bennett is a colleague and we don’t agree on some issues particularly big issues to me like earmarks taking home the bacon and Mike Lee is a great candidate but I’ve decided just out of courtesy for my colleague that it would be inappropriate for me to jump in at least at this point. I think I am watching these races. If I feel like it’s unfair particularly to an underdog who’s a good candidate then I may change my mind and get in it."
I like this. Unlike the current (and last) Republican leadership that is tainted by TARP Jim DeMint understands what was important about 1994. It wasnt that the old Republican leadership won, it was that a new crop wave of conservatives were elected that were not yet corrupted.
Unfortunately, KY is stuck with choosing between two dismal candidates, where flipping the coin will be as accurate as looking into the positions of these candidates: neither one is a true, conservative choice.
Rand Paul is NOT a conservative, not by any stretch of the imagination. Like father, like son, they are anti-military isolationist kooks who peel votes away from Republicans and aid the Left agenda.
agree. Romney, McCain or the slime huckster didnt really inspire much.
Agree with you 100%...but its nice to see McConnels face slapped.
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