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That’s among likely voters too, although when you’re looking at a lead this big, it doesn’t much matter which slice of adults you’re using. I thought next Tuesday’s primary night open thread would be rip-roaring food-fight fun between “true conservatives” and RINOs. Instead, we’re destined for a snoozer. Note the tea-party numbers, in particular. Bevin never got traction even among his ostensible core constituency.

Is it possible to be the anti-establishment candidate in a Republican primary for the U.S. Senate and be the choice of the Republican establishment in your state at the same time? By definition, this would seem impossible. Yet, State Senator Joni Ernst has managed to be the establishment backed, anti-establishment candidate in Iowa’s Republican U.S. Senate primary. Iowa’s Lt. Governor Kim Reynolds was an early endorser of Ernst’s campaign, and Governor Terry Branstad has reportedly been helpful behind the scenes, especially in the fundraising department. Ernst has also been backed by national Republican establishment figures like Mitt Romney, Sen. John...

House Dem: Climate change bigger health threat than AIDS, malaria By Andrew Restuccia - 04/06/11 12:25 PM ET Just hours before a vote Wednesday on a GOP plan to block Environmental Protection Agency climate regulations, Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) called climate change a bigger public health threat than AIDS, malaria and pandemic flu. Capps and several other liberal Democrats spoke out Wednesday morning in opposition to the legislation, authored by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.). The lawmakers, who were joined by officials from the American Lung Association and the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the Upton...

Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, who told a Nation of Islam radio show that Clarence Thomas was an "Uncle Tom," Mitch McConnell was a "racist," and all opposition to President Obama is based on the fact that he's black, refused to back down from those comments on CNN interview:

Frustrated with President Barack Obama’s reaction to Russian action in Ukraine, a group of Republican senators said Wednesday they will introduce legislation outlining a more muscular response. “What we’ve seen from the administration is a lot of rhetoric,” Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said on the Senate floor Wednesday morning. The White House has been dealing “with the situation after something bad has already occurred,” he said. Earlier this week, violence flared up in another area of Ukraine that hugs the Russian border, as the new government in Kiev criticized local police...

The latest battle in the Republican civil war is the campaign to get rid of one of the longest serving, most prominent conservatives in US politics. I'm here at the Ronald Reagan Day Diner at Kentucky's Russell County middle school to find out why some want to "Ditch Mitch" - Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate. Amid the oval and rectangular tables, some draped with T-shirts and banners, a 16-year-old girl takes to the stage. As they tuck into the country buffet of chicken, ham, green beans and cornbread (no alcohol, this is a dry county) she intones:...

<p>LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The American Conservative Union's Political Action Committee has endorsed Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell for re-election.</p> <p>ACU Director of Government Affairs Larry Hart cited McConnell's lifetime ACU rating of 90 out of a possible 100 as demonstrating McConnell's consistent support for conservative principles.</p>

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) thinks there’s still hope for immigration reform this year, but only if Democrats are willing to negotiate. “People have to acknowledge that the Democrats, if they want it passed, have to make more of a compromise,” he said in a talk to students at Harvard's Institute of Politics on Friday. Paul envisions that compromise as some sort of legal status — “status and a place for people here so that they can come out of the shadows, let them begin paying taxes, let them not be locked up and having them run from the authorities,” he...

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell said Thursday that his comments to a local newspaper that it is “not my job” to bring employment to a struggling Kentucky county were taken out of context. For a story in the Beattyville Enterprise, McConnell was asked what he would do to bring jobs to Lee County, where the unemployment rate is 12.8 percent. “That is not my job. It is the primary responsibility of the state Commerce Cabinet,” the paper quoted McConnell in its story Thursday, which ran on the paper’s front page. McConnell said in a statement Thursday that his comments were taken...

The Tea Party candidate challenging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to a primary challenge has been caught in an undercover video attending a cockfighting rally last month and there is evidence that he lied repeatedly about the event. Matt Bevin, who is seeking to wrest Kentucky’s Republican Senate nomination from McConnell, and his campaign have said they thought it was a state’s rights rally he attended in Corbin, but in the undercover video from WAVE 3 News it’s clear what the event is about with signs supporting the legalizing of cockfighting. Bevin even speaks right after a cockfighting activist who...

FULL TITLE: Senators Denounce Obama for Threatening 'Entire Constitutional System' By 'Nullifying' Immigration Laws On Thursday, 22 Republican senators, including even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), denounced President Barack Obama in a scathing letter for threatening America's "entire constitutional system" with his immigration "enforcement review" that threatens to "nullify" the nation's immigration laws. "Your actions demonstrate an astonishing disregard for the Constitution, the rule of law, and the rights of American citizens and legal residents," the senators wrote in a letter to Obama. "Our entire constitutional system is threatened when the Executive Branch suspends the law at its whim...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) hates Sen. Mitch McConnnell so much that when a constituent asked him why he supports McConnell’s reelection campaign, Paul refused to answer and told the questioner to talk to him privately. According to the Glasgow Daily Times: After addressing about 30 people who turned out to hear him, the senator opened the floor for questions. One constituent asked him why he came out in support of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Louisville. Paul declined to answer the question publicly, saying he would speak with her in private and explain his reason for supporting the senior senator. The answer...

Rand Paul will do his best to charm a group Mitt Romney’s top donors next week at an event facilitated by Romney finance director Spencer Zwick. The Friday luncheon will take place in Boston at the offices of Zwick’s private-equity firm, Solamere Capital, according to a source familiar with the event. Romney’s eldest son Tagg is also a managing partner at the firm, and Romney is the executive chairman. The event is yet another signal that Paul is preparing a for a serious presidential bid in 2016. Two years before the GOP primary, Paul is attempting to branch out beyond...

Glenn Beck worked the crowd like a preacher at a rally this month in Louisville, Ky., declaring that God had responded to conservatives’ prayers by sending a slate of tea party candidates to wrest control of the Republican Party from Mitch McConnell. But there was a more earthly benefit to the arrangement that brought Beck to the rally. It was organized by the tea party nonprofit group FreedomWorks, which had endorsed the candidates — and which has paid more than $6 million in recent years to have Beck promote the group, its initiatives and events. ..............

Don't ask Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) why he's supporting Mitch McConnell for reelection. He doesn't want to talk about it. At least publicly. While crisscrossing Kentucky during Congress's two-week recess, Paul visited a community forum in Edmonton on Wednesday to speak to constituents, where he was reportedly asked why he endorsed the Senate Republican leader. The Glasgow Daily Times described what happened next: One constituent asked him why he came out in support of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Louisville. Paul declined to answer the question publicly, saying he would speak with her in private and explain his reason for supporting the...

Endorsments can be overrated but in a conservative primary with a lot of noise and mud, could a high-profile name give a candidate the edge? Congressional District 19 candidate Lizbeth Benacquisto recently got the backing of Sarah Palin, who held a fundraiser and sang the candidate's praises on Fox News. Yesterday, Curt Clawson scored the endorsement of Sen. Rand Paul, among the first tea party backed candidates to make it big. "Washington is desperate for outside leadership," Paul said. "Curt Clawson is an outsider who will bring refreshing ideas to the halls of Congress. Today, I proudly stand with Curt...

WASHINGTON - The Senate has rejected a Republican energy plan that calls for opening an Alaska wildlife refuge and some offshore waters to oil development. Supporters of the measure couldn't get the needed 60 votes to overcome a Democratic-led filibuster threat. Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said more domestic oil production is needed to keep prices in check and to reduce U.S. dependence on oil imports. Opponents said areas such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and coastal waters that have been off limits to drilling for 25 years ought to remain that out of bounds to oil companies....

Sunday, April 13, 2014 The Paranoid Party Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog The Democrat may no longer believe in God, the Constitution or even motherhood and apple pie, but he devoutly believes with all the faith of a 9/11 Truther in the impermeability of steel and of a Neo-Nazi in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion that somewhere out there Republicans are sitting in a sealed room and plotting to bring back the 50s. And if not the 50s, then at least the early 60s. The left accuses the right of being deeply paranoid. Meanwhile...

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes announced that she spoke Wednesday with two of the state House Democratic staffers who raised the allegations of sexual harassment against former state Rep. John Arnold. According to the campaign, Grimes talked with Yolanda Costner and Cassaundra Cooper about issues affecting women in the workplace and asked them what to do with the $250 campaign contribution Arnold gave her campaign last year. And the campaign did confirm that Grimes will keep the contribution from Arnold after the conversation with the two women. The press release reads: Alison Lundergan Grimes also asked their personal...

The National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund announced Saturday it has endorsed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) for re-election in the May 20 Kentucky primary. "Mitch McConnell is a true champion of our Second Amendment rights, leading the fight against President Obama, Harry Reid and Michael Bloomberg's anti-freedom agenda," said Chris W. Cox, chairman of the National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund.....