CAN MITCH McCONNELL WIN RE-ELECTION?

McConnell's the one who looks constipated... in the middle

What masquerades for conventional Inside the Beltway wisdom can't even fathom anything but a solid win for Mitch McConnell, Kentucky's senior senator, the Republican minority leader, a tightly wound, tightly closeted homosexual. The respected (Inside the Beltway) Cook Political Report rates his race "Solid Republican." Cook is solidly wrong. McConnell may win in 2008-- but it isn't likely, let alone assured. Right now the only things he's got going for him are that the Democrats are concentrating on winning the Kentucky gubernatorial race-- and their candidate, Steve Beshear is something like 15 points ahead of the thoroughly detested Republican incumbent, Ernie Fletcher-- and that there is no opponent for him yet.

But it is important to remember that McConnell's job approval rating is below 50% and that not a single incumbent senator was re-elected last year who's approval rating was below 50% a year out from the election. And McConnell's isn't likely to rise as he continues his role as chief obstructionist in the Senate for a hated Regime in it's last death throes. Only 44% of Kentucky women approve of McConnell, and only 39% of independent voters like the job he's doing.

Yesterday's CongressDaily painted a pretty bleak picture for the old Kentucky homo.

An aggressive cadre of anti-war groups, campaign finance watchdogs, liberal activists and others has for months targeted McConnell, protesting in front of his home and across Kentucky, running television advertising, launching opposition Internet sites and peppering the media with press releases, video reports and political attacks.

They paint McConnell as an ineffective and ineffectual leader, a toady to the Bush administration who is ripe for defeat for his continued support of the war in Iraq.

"These groups have sort of emerged organically, and they are committed to defeating Mitch McConnell," said Kentucky Democratic Party Chairman Jonathan Miller, who is also the state treasurer. "He's vulnerable."

Very vulnerable. He is the embodiment of the betrayal that the Republican Party has offered America over the past 7 years. He takes money from Chinese business interests to allow tainted products into our country and to guarantee that good American jobs-- from Kentucky, no less!-- will be shipped into slave labor China. As a leader of the Love The War/Hate The Troops Coalition, he has prevented votes from coming to the floor of the Senate to help soldiers with brain injuries, to give active duty troops time away from the front lines and, of course, to end the war. He has blocked health care for poor children, education reform, and safety for miners-- a record of unadulterated betrayal.

McConnell blames his extraordinarily high disapproval ratings on his role Bush's Obstructionist-in-Chief-- as though that excuse will save his miserable ass at the polls. "I'm the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate. For some groups I'm a bigger target than I used to be. But that goes with the turf." The latest polls in the state show that his disapprovals have gone up significantly in the last several months and that 55% now disapprove of his position on Iraq. Only 47% currently think he's doing a good job.

Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, a coalition of anti-war groups funded in part by organized labor, was relentless over the summer, staging protests and vigils at McConnell's home and at his field offices, dogging him at official events and campaign fundraisers and running more than $100,000 worth of ads against him.

     Public Campaign Action Fund, an organization that favors public financing of elections, ran ads in Kentucky accusing McConnell of using his connections to benefit the client of lobbyist Hunter Bates, McConnell's former chief-of-staff...

This week, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington put McConnell on its list of the "22 most corrupt members of Congress." The group made the same claim that Bates' clients get special attention from McConnell in return for campaign contributions.

How does McConnell answer these serious charges? He whines that Barbra Streisand and George Soros are out to get him. Dead man walking.