It's too early to say for sure, but it looks like the 2014 Kentucky Senate race might just borrow its storyline from 2012, when the far-right wing engineered the selection of Republican fringe candidates that could not win a general election.
Perhaps the most dramatic example of that suicidal rush came in Missouri, where Senator Claire McCaskill helped the Tea Party candidate, Todd Akin, win the Republican primary, figuring he could never beat her in the general. (She paid for ads designed to endear him to conservatives: "Todd Akin, a crusader against bigger government.") She bet wisely. Mr. Akin ruined whatever chances he might have had when he announced that in a "legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."
In Indiana in 2012, the Tea Party managed to oust Senator Richard Lugar, a long-time Senator respected on both sides of the aisle, which was probably his main crime against Tea Partyism. They chose a candidate, Richard Mourdock, who also made stupid remarks about abortion and lost.
Now, in Kentucky, a group styling itself the United Kentucky Tea Party announced that it would to try to unseat Senator Mitch McConnell — the Republican minority leader and architect of the just-say-no approach to President Obama — in the primary in 2014. "We are working on a battle plan with the ultimate goal to retire him next year," said John T. Kemper III of Lexington, a spokesman for the group with an impressive record of losing elections for a variety of offices.
Mr. Kemper acknowledged that the group does not actually have a viable candidate to beat Mr. McConnell, and then actually win a Senate race, but said humbly that he himself is on a "short list."
Personal ambition aside, the organization's antipathy toward Mr. McConnell is hard to fathom, since he has done the Tea Party's bidding — and more — for the last four years. He was the one who announced in 2010 that his first priority was to deny President Obama a second term, and backed that up with a strategy of obstruction that was truly breathtaking to watch.
The Dump McConnell Crowd has two interesting allies.
One is Liberty for All, an out-of-state PAC funded by a rich college student from Texas, which sent out an email recently saying that Mr. McConnell is "anything but a tea partier." Preston Bates, the PAC's executive director, said: "Should the right candidate emerge — be they Republican, Democrat, or Independent — Liberty For All will remain committed to electing those dedicated to more civil liberties, more economic freedom, and freeing America from corporate influence."
The other is Democrats. "We are doing a lot of reaching out to some of the Tea Party folks across the state," Keith Rouda, a field organizer with the liberal group MoveOn and the Democratic super PAC Progress Kentucky told Politico. "At least in this stage of the race we're finding that our interests align. It's unusual."
Politico reported that Democratic donors inside and outside Kentucky are interested in spending money to defeat Mr. McConnell. It quoted Sarah Durand, president of the Louisville Tea Party, as saying that "Democrats have expressed to her a willingness to spend more than $1 million to boost a McConnell challenger."
The danger, or desirable outcome, depending on your point of view, is that what happened in Missouri and Indiana will happen in Kentucky. But Ms. Durand did not seem too troubled about that. "I really think if Senator McConnell can't garner some enthusiasm within the Tea Party, which is going to be very difficult at this point, then he's going to have a really tough road ahead in this election cycle," Ms. Durand.
Here's some free advice: Make the challenger promise never to utter the word "rape."
This blog post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: January 29, 2013
The photo caption on an earlier of this post included an inaccurate timestamp. The photo was taken last week, not this week.
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