Kentucky debate highlights GOP dilemma
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Looking for an opening a week before the Kentucky Senate Republican primary, Trey Grayson used the final debate Monday night to hammer Rand Paul as weak on national security and unreliable on cultural issues.
Grayson, who is trailing in the polls, was on the offensive for much of the hour-long session, saying Paul didn't believe a nuclear-armed Iran was a threat to America, once backed closing the detention center for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and was insufficiently opposed to abortion.
Paul shot back by accusing Grayson of distorting his views and running a dishonest, failing campaign.
But the more fundamental disagreement on display throughout the forum, which aired statewide on Kentucky public television, was an extension of the central dispute that has defined the closely-watched contest and is dividing establishment and insurgent Republicans nationally: should the party hew to a purist line on fiscal issues, slashing spending and reducing the role of Washington, even if that means taking political risks that may be unpopular with the general electorate?
The Kentucky race provides perhaps the best test case for the debate. A poor state, it has long relied upon its congressional delegation to secure federal dollars. Moreover, it has rewarded members of both parties for doing so -- returning its elected officials to Washington to gain more seniority and therefore more clout when it comes to steering spending back to the state.
But, with Democrats in the White House and controlling both chambers of Congress, the GOP's conservative base in Kentucky has become enraged over increased government spending and bailouts.
Paul, a Bowling Green ophthalmologist and son of libertarian-leaning Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), has tapped into this grassroots anger on the right and become both a favorite of his state's tea party movement and the favorite to win the primary.
But Grayson, Kentucky's secretary of state and the favorite of the state's political establishment, is testing just how far the anti-Washington fervor will go in the Bluegrass State.
On Monday, he placed the dispute in vivid terms by bringing up a popular earmark secured by veteran Rep. Hal Rogers, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee and political power in impoverished eastern Kentucky, to assist with the drug scourge in Appalachia.
First Published May 11, 2010 1:56 am
