Who's This Benton Bribery Character Miss McConnell Just Fired?

The day after Rachel's report (above), McConnell fired Jesse Benton as his campaign manager. BOOM! Out! McConnell didn't like him much anyway, since Benton has been quoted and requoted telling Kentucky libertarians that he was "sort of holding my nose for two years because what we're doing here is going to be a big benefit for Rand in 2016." Benton, a longtime Paul family retainer, is married to Ron Paul's granddaughter, Valori Pyeatt (Rand's niece). Before remaking himself into a Paulista, though, he worked for Louisiana sleaze bag David "Diapers" Vitter. He was Rand Paul's campaign manager-- and tenant, living in Rand's basement-- when he ran for Senate against McConnell's handpicked candidate. And then he was Ron Paul's very well-compensated presidential campaign manager two years later.

It has been widely known since the summer of 2012-- including by McConnell himself-- that Benton had bribed at least one Iowa Republican to come over to the Ron Paul campaign. At the time the Sorenson bribe was first exposed, the NY Times reported that "[a]nother top McConnell aide, Josh Holmes, said Mr. Benton would "absolutely" keep his job. He declined to say if Mr. Benton had apologized to Mr. McConnell" over the "holding my nose" comments. However, now that McConnell has won his anti-Tea Party primary battle against Matt Bevin, he no longer really needs Benton and as soon as it started becoming clear that Benton is likely to be arrested and indicted at some point, McConnell fired his ass, which was called, in typically dishonest political jargon, "reluctantly accepting his resignation." Kentucky political scientist Stephen Voss: "The problem with the scandal is the negative attention it brings to the McConnell campaign, which will come regardless of whether it turns out Benton really did anything wrong. Any whiff of scandal within a campaign organization can bring criticism, because opponents suggest that it reflects on the judgment of the candidate who appointed the individual."

Now that "distraction" is out of the way, McConnell can go back to vowing to block a minimum wage hike on behalf of America's anti-democracy plutocrats for whom his entire political career is dedicated to. Voss added that the revelation of the recordings of McConnell sucking up to the billionaires won't help him among Kentucky working families any more than the Benton scandal. "Both revolve around big money in campaigns, so they threaten to reinforce each other. Even worse, both events reinforce a longstanding Grimes campaign theme that McConnell is too tied into the world of lavish election spending to represent Kentucky."