Kentucky Senate race knotted (Rand Paul / Jack Conway tied at 43%)

Public Policy Polling (via WSJ) ^ | 07/06/10 | Tom Jensen

[coaltrain]

Kentucky voters don't think much of Rand Paul and as a result the race to replace Jim Bunning in the Senate is tied. Paul and Jack Conway are getting 43% each.

The more Kentucky voters get to know Rand Paul, the less they like him. When PPP first polled the race in December Paul's favorability was a +3 spread at 26/23. By May it was a -7 spread at 28/35. Now it's a -8 spread at 34/42. The national media attention Paul has received has hurt his cause with voters in the state- 38% say it has made them less likely to support Paul while 29% say it has made them more inclined to vote for him and 33% say it hasn't had an impact on their attitude toward Paul one way or the other.

[sergeantdave]

“What in the hell is wrong with Freepers on this site lately? Just what is your agenda?’

It’s real simple. FR is infested with agent provocateurs, liberal democrats and sleepers. They show up and trash conservatives and try to depress people working for these candidates.

And they NEVER show up on threads that trumpet good news for patriots and bad news for obuma, like this one:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2547492/posts

Sixty percent (60%) of U.S. voters continue to support offshore oil drilling, but voters remain critical of President Obama’s response

[RachelFaith]

I will take your bet right here and now. You list the GOP “YES” votes and then we will see if you are right and the total is 60 or better. If not, as Calvin Coolidge said “YOU LOSE”. Sadly, America will lose as well, but in your contempt for Rand Paul, so don’t seem to mind tossing Baby America out with the Paul bath water.

[Servant of the Cross]

Actually, no 'contempt' for Dr. Rand Paul exists in my post. I hope he does become KY's Senator to replace Jim Bunning. However, my point was and is, no single Senator (and most certainly not Rand Paul) could persuade the list of squishy moderate GOP Senators to filibuster Kagan. IF it could be done, quite clearly Senators DeMint or Sessions (who each run rings around Paul with regard to conservatism and influence on the GOP) would have made it happen already.

To suggest that Rand Paul could do more is laughable. Besides, since you also revere Jim Bunning, who is still in the Senate and he can't do it either, why do you think Rand can?

[RachelFaith]

First, I do not think this is a matter of CAN, it is a matter of WILL. WILL anyone? No, I do not think anyone WILL. I also do not think that she will pass with 60. Meaning, ergo, that if anyone DID, they would find that there are no enough votes, especially in the public eye of a filibusterer to reach confirmation.

I believe this is all due to the good old boy wrangling which is going on right now, so some democrats can be allowed to vote NO to save themselves this election cycle. This means, if one Senator makes a fuss of it, if one senator who also happens to have a large loud and obnoxiously insane base of a national following and is proven to just shoot from the hip dangerously so, DID it... it would be effective.

Rand Paul is the only person, who MIGHT be in the US Senate who would DO those things AND has said national loud base.

There is not any other, at this time, and so business as usual, which means cowards as usual, will prevail.

I hope I am mistaken. But I do not think so.

[Kenny Bunk]

Dave, most on the right side of the political spectrum know that we are in crisis. Many on the left side of the spectrum welcome it as a chance to see their ideas prevail.

The Difference: The LEFT is in full power. WH, The House, The Senate, The MSM, The Entertainment Industry, and the Federal Bureaucracy, etc. are solidly against the Right, which is out of power, and will be for the immediately foreseeable future, i.e., until 2012. The House will go Republican in 2010. BFD. That's no solution because the Republicans have
No Program
No Plan
No Leaders
No Clue
about how to save this country, which needs it about now.

Ron Paul definitely has at least The Clue. That's a good start. Perhaps the rest of the Right will catch up and get a Program and a Plan together, and find a Leader who can implement it.

IMHO, the Right (including me) is a state of whining and complaining. I hope it is just to get us ready to do something practical to end what has become a potentially tyrannical system of governance.

[sergeantdave]

I agree with much you write.

People forget that it took the founders 25 years, from 1750 to 1776, to organize, find leaders and make a plan to take on the British. Because we don’t see some Army marching on Washington to take back the country NOW, people get frutrated. Well, the cure for frustration is taking action, whether running for a local council seat or manning a polling station on election day.

I was involved in local government for 10 years, and sometimes I couldn’t get a single conservative to show up at local government meetings. Meanwhile, the left continued sending slimey cockroaches to local meetings to try to bully the politicians and bureaucrats to adopt left wing crap. And many did.

The reason we’re in trouble now is because the vast majority of patriots and conservatives sat on their fat butts for decades and did nothing to stop the left’s machinery.

You would think, at least, that conservatives would run local governments in areas that vote conservative for president, but no! I live in an an area that consistently votes 65% or better for conservative candidates; however, the local county government is infested with leftists. Unbelievable.

If you’re going to take back the country, you at least need to control your neigborhood - the village council and the county government. It’s how the Founders started - controlling local governments. You need a political base to operate from. By controlling local government, you control the city or village council, the police, the sheriff, the local courts, the bureaucracy. Now that’s power one can use.

With that control, you can create incredible chaos against the federal government. You can nullify federal laws, ignore bureaucratic decrees and issue rulings against federal incursion. (Yes, we have a ruling by federal district courts that allow local governments to issue ordinances blocking federal bureaucratic rules.) By starting a thousand brushfires across the country, you can quickly exhaust federal manpower and resources. We just don’t use the tools we have laying on the table before us. Damn.

Oops, I’m ranting. Thanks for your post.

[KYGrandma]

As a Kentucky voter, I feel pretty comfortable that Paul will win. Most of the voters are really upset with obama and will vote R. I haven’t been a supporter of Paul but I will vote for him just to keep Conway out. The last thing we need in KY is another democrat to screw things up.

[Kenny Bunk]

.....controlling local government....

..... and local authorities like the schoolboards .... the place from which Bill Ayers exercised dictatorial powers over hundreds of millions of Chicago tax dollars... getting community organizer Obama hired ... and together, in the process so screwed up public education in Chicago, that soon the only people under 50 in the town who will be able to read and write will be Polish immigrants.

Here in furthest Down East New England, when we need a police chief, a fire chief, a superintendent of education, a village manager ...first, a "search firm" is hired ... they come up with Affirmative Action Ani who have failed in other places ... sort of like baseball managers ... and stick them on some hapless village who only knew of Negroes and Mexicans from the pages of National Geographic and who think Lesbians come from Lebanon.

Coupla million dollars later, and a law suit for firing the worthless bastards, we wise up. Government ... the Nomenklatura as our Communists like to call it, is the very sustenance of the Left. It must be torn from them.

Not easy. Conservatives have businesses to run. Lives to lead. Children to raise. The Left has the government as father, mother, and religion.

I worked in DC for many years, and I saw Republican elected officials recruit their staffs from among these people, allowing them to scorn qualified applicants as "being too far right."

A lot hanging on the next two years ... and I hope it ain't us!

[skinkinthegrass]

A Kentucky Ping.

...for those interested. :D