Republicans Prepare To Repeat NY-23 In Kentucky Senate Race

Trey Grayson should bow out now & make way for the inevitable

Bill Owens isn't exactly my kind of Democrat. But in the end, he did pledge to support the public option and to support women's choice. We'll have to watch and see if he turns out any better than Scott Murphy has; he certainly couldn't be worse. But he did, quite improbably, beat back the teabagger rebellion that swamped the dominant Republican Establishment. The Republican Party probably feels they should have listened to Newt Gingrich instead of to self-serving ratings-mongers Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh (who actually blamed Gingrich for the teabagger catastrophe last night!) and the wannabe from Alaska. It was nothing short of pathetic to watch an array of Republican establishment types from Tim Pawlenty-- who, does, after all, define "pathetic"-- abandon their own party's mainstream candidate and follow Limbaugh, Beck and Palin down the rabbit hole... or the toilet.

The Republicans should have won in NY-23 last night, just as they have since just after the Civil War. But their own civil war killed it for them and saved the day for a mediocre Democrat with not much recommending him other than he wasn't one of them. And what did the two warring factions on the right learn? To work together? Not a chance. Each side now thinks they have to work harder to defeat the other faction. Establishment Republicans have been wringing their hands as they watch Gov. Charlie Crist's once unassailable lead turn to dust under withering fire from the same forces who led them to ruin in upstate New York.

And then this morning we woke up to the news that Miss McConnell's most prized recruit, Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson-- for whom Missy knifed Jim Bunning in the back-- is now losing the race for the Republican Senate nomination. The latest polling shows Rand Paul with 35% and the incredibly shrinking Trey Grayson with 32%. Grayson's dependence on Establishment and corporate money to fund his campaign is also losing out to Paul's grassroots fundraising. NRSC Chair Cornyn has been strong-arming Republican senators into donating to Grayson but Paul seems to have won the hearts and minds of the disgruntled Kentucky Republicans-- if not the country club set.

Jon Ward, White House correspondent for the Moonie Times frets "that the backlash against the Republican Party in a New York congressional election Tuesday marked the start of a wave that will continue in key 2010 Senate races, saying they think independent voters will abandon a divided Republican Party." Democrats are excited that teabagger extremists are challenging NRSC candidates in plenty of states besides Kentucky and Florida. Failed corporate hack Carly Fiorina hopes to buy the GOP nod in California but teabaggers have their own kooky fringe candidate, Chuck DeVore, and they have every intention of destroying Fiorina-- a much easier target-- the same way they destroyed Scozzafava. In fact, just as Fiorina officially announced her candidacy this morning, the teabaggers' #1 Senate proponent, secessionist Jim DeMint, endorsed DeVore. Teabaggers are also determined to run vicious-- burn down the house-- primaries in Connecticut, Delaware, Missouri, New Hampshire, Illinois and Ohio.

Bob Menendez, head of the DSCC said that "What we are seeing here is a fractured GOP in Senate races all over the country... The tea partiers and the birthers and the far right of their party is moving these candidates in that direction, and that's a lot harder when you have to win in the general election."

Oh, one more thing-- probably the most important-- about the polling today: if Rand Paul is the GOP candidate, the Democrat will probably win. If Miss McConnell's empty suit is the candidate, there is a better chance for Republicans to hold the seat. And that's what the problem is from Florida to New Hampshire and from California to Delaware.