KENTUCKY REPUBLICANS SPLIT OVER WHICH REACTIONARY CANDIDATE TO SUPPORT FOR THE U.S. SENATE SEAT

The news Rasmussen poll shows Bush's chief Senate obstructionist, Mitch McConnell, losing his Senate seat in November. That's the good news, The bad news is that the "Democrat" running against McConnell-- Bruce Lunsford-- isn't much better than McConnell-- and is a Democrat only in the sense that Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman are Democrats. Time and again Democrats in Kentucky have rejected Lunsford-- just as Lunsford has rejected Democratic values and positions.

But the Rasmussen poll shows that Republicans think he's just fine and that that, combined with bipartisan disdain for McConnell, is enough to propel him into the Senate-- where he will be able to immediately challenge Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson for the position of Democrat most likely to vote with the GOP on key issues. The poll shows Lunsford with 49% against McConnell's 44%.

These results stand in stark contrast to the Presidential race in Kentucky—John McCain leads Barack Obama by twenty-five percentage points. However, just 67% of McCain voters currently plan to vote for McConnell. Twenty-eight percent (28%) of McCain voters say they will split the ticket and vote for Lunsford.

There are a dozen Republican Senate incumbents who will have to fight for their political survival-- and there are reasons to be hopeful that most of them will be looking for jobs on K Street after November. Americans are blaming them-- and rightfully so-- for rubber stamping a disastrous Bush agenda that has seen a catastrophic policy of endless war in the Middle East, the return of out of control inflation at home (highlighted by gigantic gas and energy prices) and a collapsing housing market. "Prices of U.S. single-family homes plunged a record 14.1 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, marking a pace five times faster than the last housing recession."

Although I'm putting my biggest bet on Andrew Rice taking out Republican kook James Inhofe, Rasmussen is predicting the political demise of Republican stooges Ted Stevens (R-AK), John Sununu (R-NH), Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), Norm Coleman (R-MN), and John Cornyn (R-TX), as well as Democratic takeovers of open GOP seats in Virginia, Colorado and New Mexico, with possible Democratic pick-ups in Maine and Kansas. As for Kentucky, nothing could be worse than Mitch McConnell... except Bruce Lunsford worming his way into the Democratic caucus and destroying progressive initiatives from within. Don't ever forget this: