Tea Party Comb-Over... Over Some Good Old Kentucky Bourbon

Will the supporters of Rand Paul go along with the Establishment agenda of Mitch McConnell, Kentucky’s biggest political boss?

In primary after primary, Republican incumbents have found themselves in real peril from an angry group of right-leaning voters who resent the budget-busting policies that helped bring the economy to its knees. There is a growing divide between the Mitch McConnell machine and the grassroots movement that lifted Rand Paul to notoriety. What will happen when the choice moves to the general election? Can a left-leaning candidate that shares the fundamental frustrations and fiscal concerns of the Tea Party carry more appeal than a follower of Mitch McConnell?

This is a real possibility in a place like Kentucky where the voters typically choose Democrats for state office, but lean Republican in federal elections. The state is not as red as it may initially appear and populism is a winning message in a state that fell in love with the Clintons.

Enter John Waltz, a progressive-minded, populist, blue-collar Democrat running a stronger than expected campaign against one of the least accomplished McConnell loyalists in Congress, Geoff Davis. Waltz's policy positions are progressive, and his style and populist message are ones that Kentucky Tea Partiers could almost certainly learn to appreciate.

Waltz served in the Navy in Iraq and Afghanistan and when he returned home from the wars, he suffered serious health problems and went to Geoff Davis for help. “I figured he was a veteran and a Congressman and he would help me. I was wrong,” Waltz says. As a veteran advocate, Davis brought him to fundraisers and used him as a prop to talk about taking care of America’s heroes, yet he did nothing to actually help. Waltz worked with other veterans as well and had the same experience. Waltz says he is telling his story to show that if Davis can’t even bother to find the time to help disabled veterans, we know what he’s going to do when you give his office a call.

Instead of just giving up, John decided to challenge the powerful northern Kentucky incumbent. With no money and no political experience, Waltz’s biggest asset has been tenacity. He outraised Geoff Davis in the most recent fundraising reports filed with the FEC and he did it the hard way. Waltz raised slightly more than Davis in small donations from more than 400 people. Davis on the other hand collected 98% of his money from big PAC checks. Only 8 people actually donated to Davis’ campaign, a point that Waltz makes with zeal.

“Davis is Tea Party nothing and big business everything. He is trying to have it both ways and the voters aren’t buying it. This is about small businessmen, small farmers, and working people against the big corporations, their PACs, and the Washington politicians screwing us over,” Waltz explains. At a Chamber of Commerce forum, Davis recently declared that he would oppose a bill that would eliminate tax cuts for businesses that ship jobs overseas. Like Democratic Senate candidate Jack Conway, who is running on bringing jobs back to America by eliminating incentives to ship them overseas, Waltz finds this detestable. “My dad worked for GM for 30 years and saw his plant move to Mexico just weeks after NAFTA passed.” Davis was not in Congress during the NAFTA vote, but he did cast a deciding vote on CAFTA which established similar trade policies with Central America. “We have lost tens of thousands of jobs in Kentucky to China. That is unacceptable. Davis sits on the Trade Committee in Congress and hasn’t done a thing. Actually, Davis is counter-productive. He voted against helping workers that lost their jobs to globalization.” And he voted for his friend John Boehner to lead the House Republicans, the architect of Bush's no-strings-attached Wall Street bailout victory and one of the driving forces behind NAFTA and every other piece of awful trade legislation that was designed to drive down wages for American workers.

Waltz is atypical and willing to make some pretty unusual commitments. At the center of his campaign is his promise to cut his salary and start making Congress accountable to its actual performance. Waltz wants Congress and the President’s salary directly tied to the budget. “If the budget isn’t balanced, no pay raises... period, and maybe we should consider reductions proportional to the overspending.” He doesn’t stop there. Waltz wants members of the Federal Government tied to whatever health plans are available to the general public and he wants to abolish Congressional retirement. “They can pay into Social Security and get a 401K like the rest of us,” Waltz says without the slightest bit of hesitation. Waltz says this is the only way to get Congress to focus and stop playing games. Waltz would be one of the few members of Congress that would actually need his salary so his proposals are meaningful and will cost him personally. Waltz’s position is in stark contrast to Davis, who has voted for every Congressional pay raise while in office.

Geoff Davis is trying to thread a very small needle. A Washington backbencher, content to take corporate PAC money from Wall Street, and be a cog in Mitch McConnell’s political machine, Davis must convince Chamber of Commerce types that he will continue to back McConnell’s Big Business agenda at every turn. Simultaneously he is presenting himself as Rand Paul-lite in an effort to avoid the punishment visited upon other Republicans that were complicit in running up record deficits and driving the economy off a cliff.

“You know who gets pay raises even when they do a terrible job, run up deficits and ruin the economy? Wall Street bankers and Geoff Davis,” Waltz says while pointing out that Davis spends way too much time having breakfast with Wall Streeters while Kentuckian struggle to make ends meet.

Campaign finance reform is another important issue for Waltz that contradicts the behavior of Geoff Davis. Waltz wants to make it possible for regular people to run for Congress, not just career politicians and millionaires. “I worked very hard to make it possible to run and I don’t mind it because this district deserves it, but truthfully, I’ll never keep pace with someone like Davis in the long run. He takes all that big corporate money from Agribusiness, Pharmaceuticals, Wall Street and even pay day lenders, and he uses it to pretend that he’s one of us.”

Davis ran afoul of the Tea Party movement early on. The Kentucky Club for Growth publicly took him to task for ridiculing and dismissing those that were fighting back against the fiscal mess created by Republicans. An excerpt from the group’s website:

“In the interview, Davis calls the ideas of the Tea Parties, that bailouts and reckless spending is bad and the expansion of liberty is good, as "Pie in the Sky," then proceeds to criticize the Club for Growth, saying as David Adams transcribes:

"A lot of conservative groups like Club for Growth and others unfortunately spend all their time going after Republicans. As I've shared, it would be nice if they tried to defeat a liberal now and then."

Mr. Davis, just because someone has an "R" next to their name doesn't mean that that person is voting to uphold conservative principles.”

Davis has been backtracking ever since and attempting to reach out to Tea Party voters. It is not an easy sell for a three-term incumbent who has proved more of a machine politician than a reformer. Especially one who insulted the Club for Growth by saying they were wasting their money attacking elected “RINO” Republicans. Davis dodges questions about whether Obama has a legitimate birth certificate, possibly because he himself was born in Quebec Canada.

Davis waved the “Don’t Tread on Me Flag” from the Speaker’s balcony of the Capitol last spring and has held numerous special town-hall type meetings and conference calls specifically targeted at the Tea Party, but when he was asked to join Michelle Bachman’s Tea Party Caucus, he refused.

Waltz’s campaign manager, Shaun Daniels, says Davis is playing a dangerous game. “Look, it’s no big secret that there is some real discontent amongst the Tea Party folks when it comes to Mitch McConnell and the way he bullies his party towards his own agenda.” Davis neglected to make an endorsement in the hotly contested primary between Rand Paul and McConnell’s hand-picked candidate, Secretary of State, Trey Grayson, but rumors abound that Davis was helping Grayson behind the scenes. In fact, Grayson’s campaign manager, Jeremy Hughes, came directly from Davis’ camp. At the time, when everyone still thought Grayson would win because of McConnell’s backing, Davis had this to say, “Jeremy Hughes is a talented political operative and a terrific organizer. While I hate to lose him, nothing is more important than electing a conservative to replace Senator Jim Bunning. I know Jeremy’s experience and work ethic will serve the Grayson team well.”

Ironically, Davis still calls Bunning his mentor, but Bunning endorsed Rand Paul after McConnell forced Bunning from seeking re-election. Daniels says Bunning could prove to be Davis’ undoing in several ways. In addition to bucking the McConnell machine and helping boost Rand Paul, local papers have called into question some suspicious earmark activity in the state. According to an article in the Louisville Courier-Journal, “Earmarks that disappeared from the request lists of Kentucky Republicans Hal Rogers, Ed Whitfield, Brett Guthrie and Geoff Davis showed up on Mr. Bunning's list-- which is 109 items long at a value of $629.2 million for the fiscal year 2011 budget.”

How can voters trust Geoff Davis if he is willing to play these kind of tricks. Davis is trying to look like a fiscal conservative while hiding big earmark requests using a lame duck Senator. This is political opportunism at its very worst.

Davis is a “tea party comb over,” a typical political insider trying to take advantage of regular angry voters. Geoff Davis is close to Mitch McConnell, the embodiment of Washington establishment in Kentucky. Will the Tea Party buy his attempts at reinvention? Sometimes you can hide a bald spot with a wig-- the way Rand does-- or comb-over. For a politician trying to gloss over their career and core values, this can be more difficult, especially when you are trying to deceive the tea party.

The Tea Party should be asking Davis whose side is he really on? With McConnell’s approval ratings in freefall, Davis will have a hard time explaining his implicit support for Grayson and his tepid support for Paul since the primary. Davis failed to show up to a Republican Unity rally for Paul after the Primary, even though McConnell and Grayson both made appearances. They should also be asking Davis why he is sending out press releases praising the stimulus money that came to his district when he supposedly is opposed to such spending.

It is widely whispered in political circles in Kentucky and in Washington that Mitch McConnell is opposed to Rand Paul and is quietly working to sabotage his campaign, just as he did with Bunning. Paul has refused to promise that he will support McConnell for Republican Leader and apparently McConnell would rather explain why a Democrat will not support him than a Republican from his own state. This is the appeal of Paul to the Tea Party. He will buck McConnell. Can they really support Davis when he so clearly is out of sync with their real concerns?

Davis recently mocked Waltz at an event for not accepting an invitation to a Tea Party hosted candidate’s forum in the district, apparently unaware that Waltz accepted the invitation weeks ago. When asked about it Waltz said, “They want to hear from me and I’m willing to speak to anyone. We might not agree on a lot of things, but we definitely agree that Washington isn’t working hard enough.”

Davis can expect a grilling much like the one he got two nights ago in his home base of Boone County. An article about the town hall told of a warning issued to Davis during the evening’s exchange.

"There wasn't enough said against him [George Bush] then, maybe because of party loyalty. But we don't want party loyalty anymore. We want to get way past that. Maybe we'll even change our names to RINO-hunters after November," said Emily Shelton, head of the Boone County Tea Party.

This all leaves me wondering, what will this district make of John Waltz? If there is an example of a progressive that could appeal to wide range of people, maybe even Tea Partiers, Waltz may be it this cycle. Waltz points out in that despite the talk of “We the People,” Davis has left regular middle-class people like Waltz behind. Waltz lives a life like many voters, trying to raising his daughters on a military disability pension and volunteering to help other veterans. In small diners, Waffle Houses, and County Fairs, John delivers a simple message-- restoring democracy means electing folks who have struggled like everyone else and who have the work ethic to do the job, not just have the job.

Waltz is focused on traveling off the political grid in his district. He visits the population centers, and then drives off main roads to go to places that perhaps no federal candidate has ever visited. He proudly keeps a map in his office and marks with pin each stop when he comes home. He is traveling to meet and hear voters, but also to raise a clear point-- when is the last time they saw their own “representative?”

This year, Davis appears to be trying to coast by largely on his tax-payer funded mailings and telephone town halls. His rare appearance outside his home County might show that he has some explaining to do and that the voters he takes for granted aren’t too happy with his doublespeak and inconsistencies. The Tea Party in Northern Kentucky has a choice to embrace an unaccomplished Republican insider who recently insulted them, or a Democratic outsider who shares many personal traits but disagrees on some aspects of policy. In one of the stranger election years, it may well be that the Tea Party voters either through defection or simply skipping Davis’ name after pulling the lever in other races, could lift Waltz to a shocking victory, and a strange election cycle will get the biggest Cinderella story ever.