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United States News Title: Another Paul nettles GOP Another Paul nettles GOP Senior Republicans in Kentucky and Washington D.C. are deeply concerned about Senate candidate Trey Grayson’s campaign as he struggles to narrow the gap against GOP primary rival Rand Paul. Two months before the election, the libertarian-leaning Paul, son of the Texas congressman and quixotic presidential contender, has tapped into anti-Washington grass-roots fervor on the right and staked out an advantage over Grayson, Kentucky’s secretary of state and establishment favorite. There have been few polls in the race, but an automated survey earlier this month showed Paul leading by double digits. Even Grayson backers acknowledge that their candidate is lagging, if not as badly as the public polls indicate. A win by Paul, a Bowling Green ophthalmologist, would represent the first true electoral success of the tea party movement. Equally important, it would embarrass Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose political organization is running Grayson’s campaign, thrust onto the national stage a Republican with foreign policy views out of the conservative mainstream and, strategists in both parties believe, imperil the GOP’s hold on the seat now held by retiring Sen. Jim Bunning. Recognizing the threat, a well-connected former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney convened a conference call last week between Grayson and a group of leading national security conservatives to sound the alarm about Paul. “On foreign policy, [global war on terror], Gitmo, Afghanistan, Rand Paul is NOT one of us,” Cesar Conda wrote in an e-mail to figures such as Liz Cheney, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Dan Senor and Marc Thiessen. With an attached memo on Paul’s noninterventionist positions, Conda concluded: “It is our hope that you can help us get the word out about Rand Paul’s troubling and dangerous views on foreign policy.” In an interview, Conda noted that Paul once advocated for closing down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and sending some suspected terrorists to the front lines in Afghanistan. “This guy could become our Republican senator from Kentucky?” he exclaimed. “It’s very alarming.” Paul’s lead has also caught the attention of the pro-Israel community, a group not known for paying close attention to Bluegrass State politics. “Despite the hard financial times and plenty of incumbents who are asking for help, there is a lot of support for Trey Grayson, and it has definitely become a priority,” said one political operative who works on Israel issues. Unlike his father, Paul is no ideological purist. Even as he’s criticized for being outside the GOP mainstream, he’s moving swiftly to reposition himself and, in an interview with POLITICO, testily disputed the notion that he is a dove. “I don’t believe in closing down Gitmo,” Paul said. “And I don’t want to try terrorists in civilian courts. I want to try them with military tribunals.” Only those who are found innocent and can’t be convicted should be returned home, he said. He noted that on such questions he does part company with his father. “I have my own positions on a host of issues, and there will be times when we do disagree,” he said. Paul is also benefiting from the sense of discontent with the government that fueled his father’s presidential campaign and that has grown in the year since President Barack Obama took office and began spending to stimulate the economy and bail out auto companies and banks. “He’s appealing to the frustration toward Washington,” said longtime Republican Rep. Hal Rogers, who represents much of eastern Kentucky and is officially neutral in the race, though widely seen as sympathetic to Grayson. “He’s been able to speak the tea party language.” Paul said that he’s already begun to campaign for Republican House candidates taking on incumbent Democrats in Kentucky and believes he’ll be in the vanguard of a conservative comeback. “A tea party tidal wave is going across the country, and we’re going to sweep a lot of folks out of office,” he said. In Kentucky, Grayson’s unexpected difficulties have sown anxiety within the Republican political community. Last month, Bob Gable, a former longtime state GOP chairman and a major donor, sought to have what two Kentucky Republicans described as an intervention with Grayson about his campaign strategy and message. The meeting, which was to include top state party officials, never took place and Grayson privately sought to reassure Gable that he would sharpen his message, a Kentucky GOP source said. Reached by phone, Gable declined to discuss his efforts. “I have no comment,” he said, adding that he thought Grayson “would do fine.” But other veteran Kentucky Republican politicos are more worried. “Everyone is asking everyone else what is going on with the campaign,” said a Grayson supporter and longtime Republican in the state who frequently talks to activists. “A lot of people don’t know where or how to engage or what the message is.” “Had Grayson come out more aggressively, he could’ve knocked Paul out of the box early,” lamented a high-ranking Kentucky Republican. “But, for whatever reason, that strategy didn’t occur.” Still, this Republican and other top state party members think Grayson can come back and are heartened that he’s getting more aggressive in taking on Paul. “Anybody who supports Grayson has to say they wish he was 20 points ahead, but he still has an opportunity to win,” said Todd Inman, a GOP activist in Owensboro who was heavily involved in McConnell’s 2008 reelection. The reason, Inman said, is simple. “His views don’t match any successful Republican in Kentucky in recent years,” he said. In recent weeks, Grayson has gone on the attack against Paul with just that message, lashing his rival with TV ads on issues ranging from coal to national security. Grayson supporters believe that Paul has benefited from his outsider status in what is shaping up to be the ultimate outsider year but that the state’s conservative primary electorate will recoil once they get beyond the doctor’s fiscal views. Part of the strategy is to portray Paul as just plain weird. Grayson has launched a website, www.randpaulstrangeideas.com, that features a picture of a turtleneck-clad Paul against a quasi-psychedelic background and that details his positions on national security as well as cultural matters such as marriage, abortion and marijuana (as a libertarian-leaning Republican, Paul tends to want such matters decided on the state level). One veteran Kentucky Republican who is backing Grayson said the hope was that Paul’s outsider status would be what ultimately does him in. “Kentucky voters are going to see a fuller picture of him as an outsider in the worst sense of the phrase,” said this Republican. “His money comes from outside of the state, and his views are outside of the Kentucky mainstream.” Further, argued this Republican, Paul is not the political neophyte he claims to be and actually wants to continue in the footsteps of his iconoclastic, 75-year-old father in the tradition of other political dynasties. “He really wants to take over the family’s political business in Washington,” said this source. Establishment Republicans have also begun pressing an electability message, making the case that a Paul primary win could hand the Democrats the seat in November. Democrats still hold an overwhelming registration advantage in the state, and the concern is that many of of those who lean conservative may, after years of crossing party lines, return home to support their party’s nominee. “People who would say that aren’t paying any attention because all the polls show me beating the Democrats to a greater degree than my Republican opponent,” Paul said, noting that his support for term limits and a balanced budget amendment and his opposition to financial bailouts resonates across party lines. Grayson’s campaign, while recognizing the need to make up ground, said that, despite Paul’s tea party strength, the race shouldn’t be declared over yet. “This is similar to five or six weeks out of the [2008] McConnell race when everybody wanted to come in and do a the-leader-is-dead story,” a senior Grayson official said. “Everybody just wants to write this story a little too early.” As for McConnell, he hasn’t formally endorsed Grayson, and the leader’s allies are sensitive about the race being portrayed as any kind of referendum on his long-held grip on the Kentucky GOP. Were McConnell to weigh in more directly in the race, it could boost Grayson with party faithful — but it also could offer yet another reminder that Paul is the anti-establishment candidate. Should Paul win the seat, it would create one of the most striking home-state odd couples in Senate history and raise questions about McConnell’s political strength at home and in the national party. Asked about Grayson’s problems and what it meant for him, McConnell spoke in generalities. “I believe what you’re seeing in Kentucky and across the country is a lot of energy on our side and a lot of optimism about changing the equation around here next November,” McConnell said at a news conference this week. But asked why he thought Paul was leading, the senator responded with a deadpan reminder that there was time left. “The election in Kentucky is May 18,” he said.
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Title should really read "Another Non Neocon Paul nettles GOP". LOLOL
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