Mitch McConnell got 60%of the Republican vote, meaning 40% of voting Republicans opposed him. This is being cheered in and around Washington as a wonderful victory for McConnell and incumbents generally, and a crushing defeat for the Tea Party. Labels and agendas aside, when a 30 year incumbent senator,who is minority leader of the Senate, spends $9 million to defeat an unknown small businessman running a first-time campaign against him, and that senator receives only 60% of the Republican vote, he has some serious problems going into the general election. This was no landslide. After 30 years in the Senate, McConnell is not popular in Kentucky, even within Republican ranks, and he used every tool available to an incumbent, with a massive funding advantage, to win the primary. McConnell goes into the general election as a weak Republican incumbent, one of the weakest candidates among all the races. Should he win, it won’t be because he is a worthy national leader or an effective voice for Kentuckians, but a clever and ruthless Washington politician funded by crony capitalists, among others,who overwhelms his opponents. Yes, that’s politics. Nothing illegitimate about it. But some of us want better for the party and the nation.
