Forget the Arkansas runoff or Joe Sestak’s campaign against Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania. The most ideological Senate race to come out of last night’s primaries is in Kentucky, plain and simple.
The race pits state Attorney General Jack Conway, a pro-choice, pro-heath care reform, pro-Don’t Ask Don’t Tell-repeal Democrat against ophthalmologist Rand Paul, the self-proclaimed walking, talking embodiment of the tea party movement.
Nowhere else will the battle between the progressive left and the hard-core tea party right be clearer than here. Neither man is the perfect example of his supporters’ hopes and dreams, but they’re pretty darn close. And now they’re going to go to war. It’s the race both national sides have been waiting for — rather than a candidate who runs toward the middle, Progressive Democrats get an avowed pro-choice Democrat to carry their flag in the red state of Kentucky. Conservative Republicans, meanwhile, get their poster boy to battle it out with Conway and his netroot supporters.
Though issue distinctions didn’t seem to play a huge role in the Democratic primary, progressive groups agreed that Conway was their man. DailyKos and MoveOn endorsed Conway and urged their supporters to back him in his race against Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo.
The rest of the liberal blogosphere got on board with Conway, too. Here’s how Crooks And Liars described the race: the “worse-than-Blanche DINO, Dan Mongiardo” vs. the “principled” Conway, “who’s made a name for himself standing up for ordinary Kentucky families against the special interests.”
Liberals are excited by Conway, even if he runs to the center on issues like coal, a key part of the Kentucky economy.
Meanwhile, Paul’s purity needs no introduction. Just check out this line from his victory speech last night:
“We’ve come to take our government back,” he said, promising to deliver “a message from the tea parties.”
Now the stage is set for the race partisans have been waiting for — the social views of the left vs. the fiscal views of the tea parties. Stay tuned.
