Does The Republican Party Want Trey Grayson To Primary Jim Bunning?

Is Trey Grayson Miss McConnell's type?

Mitch McConnell and both Kentucky and national Republicans are working overtime to push Senator Jim Bunning out of a re-election race in 2010. Today's Hill ran a piece about a poll showing Bunning with an approval rating in the 40s. Incumbents always lose unless their approval a year out in well into the 50s.

Yesterday's CongressDaily said the antipathy between McConnell and Bunning is making it next to impossible for the already extremely feeble Bunning to mount a campaign or do even minimal fundraising.

The relationship between Kentucky's senior and junior senators has careened from testy to icy with McConnell concerned that Bunning's lack of preparation and passion will result in the Republicans losing an incumbent's seat.

The tiff has played out somewhat publicly over the last month. McConnell said in January that he didn't know if Bunning was running.

McConnell isn't alone; just last week, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn of Texas also said he wasn't sure Bunning was going to run.

But in a Tuesday conference call, Bunning said he has reminded McConnell of conversations the two had in December about his re-election plans.

"I think [McConnell] knows my intentions very clearly," Bunning said. "I brought up the conversation we had the first week in December, and I think his memory was refreshed."

The skepticism is grounded in Bunning's meager fund-raising -- he finished the year with just $150,000 in his campaign fund-- and what Kentucky Republicans say privately is his apparent lack of organizing a statewide campaign that will cost at least $10 million.

Bunning's behavior has also become an issue. He missed a week of Congress' new session to take a family vacation and was the only Senate Republican to skip a meeting last week with President Obama on the federal stimulus package, a proposal that Bunning has vocally opposed.

Though they come from the same state and same party, Bunning and McConnell are not particularly close. The McConnell camp is frustrated that Bunning's failure to have his campaign ready to roll will mean a defeat next year in Kentucky.

"It is obvious that McConnell, Cornyn and others do not believe Bunning is likely to win re-election," said Al Cross, a former Louisville Courier-Journal political writer who now directs the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky.

"When you have the leaders of your own party against you at the get-go, it seems to reduce your chances even further," Cross said.

Bunning, 77, said this week he plans to raise $2 million in the second quarter of the year, but some Kentucky Republican leaders say he should already have that in the bank. They also say Bunning is late in building a grassroots organization across the state.

McConnell has a man-crush on Trey Grayson, the 36 year old 2-term KY Secretary of State, and wants him, rather than the doddering, senile, and extremist Bunning, to defend the seat.