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Offline truth_seeker

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Political Paddock: Is this the end for Matt Bevin?
« on: February 18, 2014, 06:43:06 pm »
http://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php?action=post;board=7.0

Political Paddock: Is this the end for Matt Bevin?

By Sam Youngman

Herald-Leader Political writer February 17, 2014

Even Alison Lundergan Grimes' grandmother seems to think Matt Bevin is headed toward defeat at the hands of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

"After he finishes with that Tea Party feller, he will come after Alison with a vengeance," Elsie Case, Grimes' grandmother, told a Northern Kentucky audience Monday.

Case joins a growing chorus.

The revelation last week that Bevin signed a letter to investors praising the 2008 bank bailouts, combined with Bevin's tortured explanation and repeated condemnations of the bailout, make for a potentially fatal political blow. To McConnell's re-election team, it represented "the final piece of the puzzle."

Bevin, the Louisville businessman challenging McConnell in the May 20 Republican primary, already was struggling mightily to raise money and gain traction against the much better-funded and more well-known McConnell.

But for McConnell — and really, to the outside Tea Party fundraising groups getting involved to take out Kentucky's senior senator — this was never about Bevin. It is the proxy war McConnell wanted to wage against those outside groups, a wish those groups have been only too happy to accommodate.

Now, Team Mitch is armed with what it thinks is the right ammunition to achieve the ultimate goal: dividing Tea Party voters from Tea Party fundraising groups by exposing those groups as hypocritical for denouncing bailouts but backing Bevin.

McConnell appears increasingly well positioned to win such a fight.

Long disdainful and mistrustful of the media, Tea Party groups and voters are unlikely to be moved by mainstream news reports of what appears to be a flip-flop from Bevin. But when Bevin's own attorney tells ultra-conservative Breitbart News that "as a general matter, if you put your signature on anything, you would be at least acknowledging you don't have a major issue with the content," conservatives are likely to take notice.

The same goes for when U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, who has been loath to disparage Bevin despite endorsing McConnell with varying degrees of conviction, told The Associated Press on Monday that Bevin's credibility had been wounded.

The outside groups — Senate Conservatives Fund and Madison Project — have not backed away from Bevin, instead interpreting the media's focus on his praise for the 2008 Troubled Assets Relief Program as "a sign that McConnell's internal polling is sensing Bevin can become a threat of epic proportions," said Daniel Horowitz, policy director for the Madison Project.

"Voters aren't fooled by these oppo hits coming from the establishment," Horowitz said, referring to the common practice of campaigns leaking damaging material about their opponents to the media. "Instead of being open about their lack of conservative principles, establishment Republicans run to the right in primaries and even try to paint their challengers as phony conservatives.

"There is no conceivable primary challenger who has had an extensive career in the private sector who cannot be tied to some big government policy foisted upon the private economy by people like McConnell over the past few decades."

Rachel Semmel, Bevin's spokeswoman, repeated a similar refrain when pressed on some of his explanations for his signature on a letter that included the phrase "don't call it a bailout."

"This is just another attempt by Mitch McConnell to hide his liberal voting record," Semmel said. "Come Election Day, what voters will remember is that McConnell called the bank bailout the Senate's finest moment."

Semmel said that since Bevin's bailout letter was revealed in Politico last week, the campaign has raised more than $100,000 from about 18,000 people.

It's clear that the outside groups have dug in, and neither they nor Bevin is throwing in the towel, evident Monday when one of the groups provided the Herald-Leader with "oppo" research showing that McConnell sent letters to various federal agencies asking that some of the $787 billion stimulus money from 2009 be spent in Kentucky.

After voting against the stimulus and repeatedly criticizing it, McConnell wrote to the Department of Justice, asking that Kentucky cities be considered for money to hire more police officers; to the Department of Transportation, asking for stimulus money to build specific road and bridge projects; and to the National Endowment for the Arts, seeking to steer money to the Kentucky Gateway Museum Center.

McConnell spokeswoman Allison Moore responded by saying that while McConnell "was fighting President Obama's stimulus tooth and nail, Matt Bevin was singing its praises in letters to his investors."

With the law passed by Obama and Democratic majorities, Moore said, it would have been irresponsible for McConnell not to ask for some money for Kentucky.

"Matt Bevin won't understand this, but unlike President Obama, conservatives don't choose which laws to follow," she said. "So Senator McConnell will not disqualify Kentucky from competing with other states for programs he may personally oppose but have been signed into law."

McConnell's aides say they want the fight to go on in Kentucky, forcing outside groups to spend money here instead of Louisiana, where they fear that the groups could continue to prop up candidates not palatable to general election voters.

Shortly after the Herald-Leader broke the news in October of McConnell's desire for a proxy war against Tea Party fundraising groups, McConnell aide Josh Holmes made a reference to the movie A Bronx Tale.

Those groups, Holmes said, had been tearing up GOP primaries just like the biker gang in the film that had been destroying bars before unwittingly walking into a mafia bar and a brutal beating.

"The difference this cycle is that they strolled into Mitch McConnell's bar, and he doesn't throw you out, he locks the door," Holmes said at the time.

This week, Holmes said he thought Bevin's bailout letter was the deadbolt, and the groups backing him were in for a surprise.

"It may not be evident to them yet, but they're locked in Kentucky defending a con man and watching their credibility with the conservative community evaporate," Holmes said.
"God must love the common man, he made so many of them.�  Abe Lincoln

Offline Rapunzel

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Re: Political Paddock: Is this the end for Matt Bevin?
« Reply #1 on: February 18, 2014, 08:04:55 pm »
Your link is bad - this is the link to this opinion blog site.........

http://www.kentucky.com/2013/12/23/3002950/political-paddock-matt-bevin-and.html

there is interesting comments and not everyone agrees with the post which is from December 2013......

Bill Polyniak · Top Commenter · Lexington, Kentucky
Let's have a review of some of the things that Mitch McConnell has voted for. McConnell has voted for Gun Control. Mitch McConnell voted for Indefinite Detention and voted again for it last week, McConnell could have introduced an amendment protecting citizens but did not. Mitch McConnell voted for Amnesty in 1986,2006,2007 and supports it now. Mitch McConnell has voted for Abortion Funding. Mitch McConnell has voted for Tax Increases. Mitch McConnell has voted for Liberal Judges. Mitch McConnell voted for The Patriot Act. Mitch McConnell voted to remove the sunset clause from The Patriot Act. Mitch McConnell voted to send tanks and jets to the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt. Mitch McConnell has voted for increased spending time and time again adding to the 17 Trillion debt crisis. You don't like big government telling you have...See More
Reply ·
· December 24, 2013 at 8:51am

Bill Marshall · Top Commenter · University of Kentucky
This "reporter" starts off as a Bevin cheerleader for the purpose of attempting to hurt McConnell. The Liberal Democrats and their buddies in the media say as many good things about Bevin as possible. They think it will help Grimes in the primary against McConnell.
Reply · 2 ·
· December 24, 2013 at 7:12am

    Mark Preston · Top Commenter · Lexington, Kentucky
    That's a bald-faced lie, Bill. You may want to spin it otherwise, but the reporter doesn't have a "Liberal Democrat" slant to his writing.

    Obviously, you didn't take Journalism as your major in College. What did you study? What College did you attend?
    Reply ·
    · December 24, 2013 at 7:47pm

Jim Welch · Top Commenter · Lexington, Kentucky
The more you know or find out about Bevin , the more you will not consider him for your vote!
So the Democrats want us to consider Ashley Judd...(a joke).. and when that didn't fly... they found Allison Grimes (Greg Stumbo's daughter).

This would have been an easy win for the Democrats if they had a viable candidate. (there were several but they declined to run).
Now it will probably be a fairly close race that is a toss-up.
Reply · 3 ·
· December 24, 2013 at 6:10am

    Bill Marshall · Top Commenter · University of Kentucky
    The fact that all those Democrats declined suggests that it's not an easy race for any challenger, as it should be. Sen McConnell is doing a great job and I will happily vote for him again. Moreover, KY as a small state benefits from the seniority that Sen McConnell has earned through his hard work and dedication to this great state.
    Reply ·
    · December 24, 2013 at 7:09am

Terrell A Fugate · Top Commenter
dunno about mr bevin's politics, but he's definitely got more personality than mitch (why do every time I think of mitch, I think lump of coal and checks from china?). bevin could be an even more blank teabagger than oscar cruz in texas, but I'd still vote for him over mitch.
Reply ·
· December 24, 2013 at 4:07am

    Tim Preston · Top Commenter · Lexington, Kentucky
    Bevin is Cruz-Lite but of that group. Even that however is better than another 6 years of the crony capitalist McConnell back in Washington, even at the expense of KY losing the possibility of majority leader in the senate.

    There are things I really like about Bevin, the classical liberalism in him but then there is the republican side that isn't much different than Mitch.

    I wish we had open primaries though, I would certainly put my vote behind Bevin to help retire McConnell once and forever.
    Reply ·
    · December 24, 2013 at 5:18am

�The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.� G Washington July 2, 1776

Offline sinkspur

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Re: Political Paddock: Is this the end for Matt Bevin?
« Reply #2 on: February 19, 2014, 12:56:22 am »
Yes.  This is the end for Matt Bevin.  After screaming about bailouts, turns out he favored a bailout for his clients in TARP.
Roy Moore's "spiritual warfare" is driving past a junior high without stopping.

Offline Formerly Once-Ler

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Re: Political Paddock: Is this the end for Matt Bevin?
« Reply #3 on: February 19, 2014, 04:55:23 am »